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Wednesday 10 December 2008
Tuesday 9 December 2008
Original Brief: “Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.”
Our first shot was a low angle shot of Jonny walking up a corridor from behind. It then cut to a an eye level shot of him coming towards the camera and up to a door in the wall. This helps to set the scene and show that before he enters the room it was only occupied with the one girl. The shot of him turning the handle was cut smoothly to a shot from inside the room of the door opening and him coming half way through the door. The continuity was crucial in this part so as not to disorientate the audience. When filming the dialogue we filmed one characters lines before filming the others and edited them into a conversational structure, we did this so that the camera would remain in the same position. Here is where we included out shot/reverse shot of the girl being spoken to, we did this to add variety from conventional over the shoulder shots. When editing we realised that one of our shots 'crossed the line' in the 180 degree rule and used Adobe Premiere Elements to flip the frame so that it was facing the right way.
As editing was the most crucial part in the construction of the film, especially being a continuity task, we used a program called Adobe Premiere Elements. This enabled us to cut frames, add effects such as slow motion or transitions and rearrange shots to create continuity. We had no problems envloving camera shake as we used a tripod for the entirety of the filming, this made a huge difference in the proffesional quality of the end result. We tried to demonstrate a variety of shots including: Low angle shot, close up, zoom out, shot/reverse shot, mid shot. We had no problems when uploading our film to youtube or onto our blogs.
Original Brief: “Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.”
I believe that our final product met the the brief fairly closely excusing the fact that our character didnt sit down opposite another character he simply stood infront of her. We did, however, clearly demontrate the character opening a door, crossing a room and exchanging dialogue with another character.
Our first shot was a low angle shot of Jonny walking up a corridor from behind. It then cut to a an eye level shot of him coming towards the camera and up to a door in the wall. This helps to set the scene and show that before he enters the room it was only occupied with the one girl. The shot of him turning the handle was cut smoothly to a shot from inside the room of the door opening and him coming half way through the door. The continuity was crucial in this part so as not to disorientate the audience. When filming the dialogue we filmed one characters lines before filming the others and edited them into a conversational structure, we did this so that the camera would remain in the same position. Here is where we included out shot/reverse shot of the girl being spoken to, we did this to add variety from conventional over the shoulder shots. When editing we realised that one of our shots 'crossed the line' in the 180 degree rule and used Adobe Premiere Elements to flip the frame so that it was facing the right way.
As editing was the most crucial part in the construction of the film, especially being a continuity task, we used a program called Adobe Premiere Elements. This enabled us to cut frames, add effects such as slow motion or transitions and rearrange shots to create continuity. We had no problems envloving camera shake as we used a tripod for the entirety of the filming, this made a huge difference in the proffesional quality of the end result. We tried to demonstrate a variety of shots including: Low angle shot, close up, zoom out, shot/reverse shot, mid shot. We had no problems when uploading our film to youtube or onto our blogs.
Original Brief: “Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.”
I believe that our final product met the the brief fairly closely excusing the fact that our character didnt sit down opposite another character he simply stood infront of her. We did, however, clearly demontrate the character opening a door, crossing a room and exchanging dialogue with another character.
Wednesday 3 December 2008
This is England Case Study
Certification: 18 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2007/apr/23/an18forthisisenglandthis
There was much uproar about the BBFC’s decision to make the film and 18 for its “realistic violence and racist language”. The makers believed that the ones who would benefit the film the most would not permitted to see the film due to this. Bristol City Council decided to give the film a 15 certificate but whether or not it will be changed remains to be seen.
Locations:
The ending credits were filmed in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England, UK.
Most of it was filmed in Nottingham except the abandoned houses which were filmed in RAF Newton, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England, UK.
This was a place where This Is England was filmed
Funding: National Lottery
Production Companies
· Big Arty Productions
· EM Media
· Film4
· Optimum Releasing
· Screen Yorkshire
· UK Film Council
· Warp Films
Distributors
· IFC Films (2007) (USA) (theatrical)
· IFC First Take (2007) (USA) (theatrical)
· Madman Entertainment (2007) (Australia) (all media)
· NetFlix (2007) (USA) (DVD)
· NonStop Entertainment (2007) (Sweden) (theatrical)
· Optimum Releasing (2006) (UK) (theatrical)
· Red Envelope Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)
· Sandrew Metronome Distribution (2008) (Finland) (DVD)
Special Effects
· MotionFX (digital intermediate)
Other Companies
· Abadia Catering catering
· Anglo American Filming Vehicles tracking vehicles (as Anglo American)
· Arn Lighting lighting equipment
· Barclays Bank PLC banking services
· Chitwell Van Hire vehicle hire
· Clearing House, The clearances
· DeLuxe Laboratories prints by
· EM Foundation publicity: UK
· EM Media developed by
· Film Finance completion guarantor (as Film Finances Inc.)
· Film Lab North rushes processing
· FilmFour developed by
· Ice Films camera and grip equipment (as ICE Films)
· Ice House accommodation
· Kodak film stock
· Kodak filmed on
· Media Insurance Brokers insurance (as Media Insurances Brokers)
· Movie Makers facilities vehicles
· Premiere Travel Inn hotel
· Saco World accommodation
· Sapex Scripts post-production script
· Spool Post Production audio & offline post facility
· Trans Sport rigging equipment (as Trans-Sport)
· Urban Short Stay accommodation
· Videosonics Cinema Sound sound re-recording
· Wavendcommunications communications equipment (as Wavend Communications)
· Whitehouse & Co legal and business affairs
· Works, The international sales
Review from Peter Bradshaw (British):
“Shane Meadows continues his fast and fluent film-making career with this quasi-autobiographical picture about skinheads: a movie with hints of Alan Clarke's Made in Britain and, in its final image, the haunted disenchantment of Truffaut's The 400 Blows. It is a sad, painful and sometimes funny story from the white working classes of 1980s Britain, the cannon-fodder caste alienated from Falklands rejoicing on the home front and not invited to participate in the nation's promised service-economy prosperity.
Meadows boldly attempts to reclaim the skinhead from the traditional neo-Nazi image, explicitly distinguishing his characters from a separate racist influence, and presenting them as an anarchic youth tribe that idolised West Indian music. He sees their susceptibility to the extremist right as a poignant and even tragic part of their fatherless culture, literally and figuratively orphaned by the times.
There's a winning lead performance from 13-year-old newcomer Thomas Turgoose playing a put-upon lad called Shaun in the run-down Grimsby of 1983. His dad was a serviceman killed in the Falklands and he's perennially getting picked on for this, and for his horrible flared jeans which make him look, as one bully cruelly puts it, like Keith Chegwin's son. Sloping and moping his way home after a standard-issue school day of humiliation, Shaun gets waylaid by some skins in a dodgy underpass, but instead of yet more battering, the gang give him sympathy and understanding; they become Shaun's only friends, and with a new Ben Sherman shirt and number one cut, Shaun has new pride and a new identity.
The gang's leader is Woody - a cheerful, sparky performance from Joe Gilgun - and they have an African-Caribbean member facetiously nicknamed Milky, played by Meadows regular Andrew Shim; Shaun even finds romance with one of the group's girl-punk fellow travellers: a languid and rather elegant older woman called Smell (Rosamund Hanson) who earnestly explains to Shaun's mum that she is called that simply because it rhymes with Michelle. The idyll is soon destroyed with the highly unwelcome appearance of Combo, a ferocious and sinister skin warrior just out of prison, played by Stephen Graham. He demands the group join his National Front cell, and turn out for an NF meeting in a tatty pub, addressed by one of the movement's suit-wearing officer class, played in cameo by Frank Harper.
Turgoose is the picture's heart and soul, and it's a terrifically natural, easy and commanding performance. Turgoose's open face radiates charm, and then, when he goes over to the dark side of racism, a creepy, anti-cherubic scorn: almost like one of the little blond kids in Village of the Damned. But Meadows is always concerned to preserve a sympathetic core to Shaun, and in fact to all the skins. Even the deeply objectionable Combo is shown to be suffering from emotional pain.
Like Meadows' earlier pictures, Dead Man's Shoes and A Room for Romeo Brass, This Is England is about younger, vulnerable figures being taken under the wing of older, flawed men, and this personal theme here finds its richest and maturest expression yet. As to whether we should buy its implied leniency about skinhead culture: that is another question. The West Indian influence is advanced as proof that skins were not necessarily racist: yet it can't cancel out Combo's hate campaign against South Asians, the "Pakis" who "smell of curry", a campaign which goes quite unchallenged or even unremarked upon by any of the skins, good or bad.
The skinhead identity is, after all, obviously supposed to be more aggressive than that of other tribes: I remember as a 10-year-old cowering on the terraces of Watford football club in the early 70s, as the Luton boot boys got stuck in, and my father grimly telling me that the reason they shaved their heads that way was so the coppers couldn't grab them by the hair. Whether or not that is true, it certainly made the wearer's head look like a big, third clenched fist. And it's still difficult to get a handle on them.
Meadows appears to want to find emotional truths behind the bravado, to find reasons for the male rage. It's a valid quest, and there are telling and touching moments, particularly between Turgoose and Rosamund Hanson. I found myself wishing that their love story could occupy more of the film, maybe for the same reason that the Shane Meadows film I have enjoyed most is the one his real fans loathe: the comedy Once Upon a Time in the Midlands. But from the get-go of this drama, it is obvious that things are heading only one way: towards a climactic flourish of violence, and it's a glum business wondering to whom and from whom this is going to happen. This is a violent subject, and these are violent people, and yet I couldn't help feeling that Meadows is, as so often, more comfortable with machismo than with the humour and gentleness which play a smaller, yet intensely welcome part of his movies. However agnostic I confess to still feeling about his work, there's no doubt that Meadows is a real film-maker with a growing and evolving career, and with his own natural cinematic language. When I think of his films, I think, for good or ill: this is English cinema.”
Certification: 18 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2007/apr/23/an18forthisisenglandthis
There was much uproar about the BBFC’s decision to make the film and 18 for its “realistic violence and racist language”. The makers believed that the ones who would benefit the film the most would not permitted to see the film due to this. Bristol City Council decided to give the film a 15 certificate but whether or not it will be changed remains to be seen.
Locations:
The ending credits were filmed in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England, UK.
Most of it was filmed in Nottingham except the abandoned houses which were filmed in RAF Newton, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England, UK.
This was a place where This Is England was filmed
Funding: National Lottery
Production Companies
· Big Arty Productions
· EM Media
· Film4
· Optimum Releasing
· Screen Yorkshire
· UK Film Council
· Warp Films
Distributors
· IFC Films (2007) (USA) (theatrical)
· IFC First Take (2007) (USA) (theatrical)
· Madman Entertainment (2007) (Australia) (all media)
· NetFlix (2007) (USA) (DVD)
· NonStop Entertainment (2007) (Sweden) (theatrical)
· Optimum Releasing (2006) (UK) (theatrical)
· Red Envelope Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)
· Sandrew Metronome Distribution (2008) (Finland) (DVD)
Special Effects
· MotionFX (digital intermediate)
Other Companies
· Abadia Catering catering
· Anglo American Filming Vehicles tracking vehicles (as Anglo American)
· Arn Lighting lighting equipment
· Barclays Bank PLC banking services
· Chitwell Van Hire vehicle hire
· Clearing House, The clearances
· DeLuxe Laboratories prints by
· EM Foundation publicity: UK
· EM Media developed by
· Film Finance completion guarantor (as Film Finances Inc.)
· Film Lab North rushes processing
· FilmFour developed by
· Ice Films camera and grip equipment (as ICE Films)
· Ice House accommodation
· Kodak film stock
· Kodak filmed on
· Media Insurance Brokers insurance (as Media Insurances Brokers)
· Movie Makers facilities vehicles
· Premiere Travel Inn hotel
· Saco World accommodation
· Sapex Scripts post-production script
· Spool Post Production audio & offline post facility
· Trans Sport rigging equipment (as Trans-Sport)
· Urban Short Stay accommodation
· Videosonics Cinema Sound sound re-recording
· Wavendcommunications communications equipment (as Wavend Communications)
· Whitehouse & Co legal and business affairs
· Works, The international sales
Review from Peter Bradshaw (British):
“Shane Meadows continues his fast and fluent film-making career with this quasi-autobiographical picture about skinheads: a movie with hints of Alan Clarke's Made in Britain and, in its final image, the haunted disenchantment of Truffaut's The 400 Blows. It is a sad, painful and sometimes funny story from the white working classes of 1980s Britain, the cannon-fodder caste alienated from Falklands rejoicing on the home front and not invited to participate in the nation's promised service-economy prosperity.
Meadows boldly attempts to reclaim the skinhead from the traditional neo-Nazi image, explicitly distinguishing his characters from a separate racist influence, and presenting them as an anarchic youth tribe that idolised West Indian music. He sees their susceptibility to the extremist right as a poignant and even tragic part of their fatherless culture, literally and figuratively orphaned by the times.
There's a winning lead performance from 13-year-old newcomer Thomas Turgoose playing a put-upon lad called Shaun in the run-down Grimsby of 1983. His dad was a serviceman killed in the Falklands and he's perennially getting picked on for this, and for his horrible flared jeans which make him look, as one bully cruelly puts it, like Keith Chegwin's son. Sloping and moping his way home after a standard-issue school day of humiliation, Shaun gets waylaid by some skins in a dodgy underpass, but instead of yet more battering, the gang give him sympathy and understanding; they become Shaun's only friends, and with a new Ben Sherman shirt and number one cut, Shaun has new pride and a new identity.
The gang's leader is Woody - a cheerful, sparky performance from Joe Gilgun - and they have an African-Caribbean member facetiously nicknamed Milky, played by Meadows regular Andrew Shim; Shaun even finds romance with one of the group's girl-punk fellow travellers: a languid and rather elegant older woman called Smell (Rosamund Hanson) who earnestly explains to Shaun's mum that she is called that simply because it rhymes with Michelle. The idyll is soon destroyed with the highly unwelcome appearance of Combo, a ferocious and sinister skin warrior just out of prison, played by Stephen Graham. He demands the group join his National Front cell, and turn out for an NF meeting in a tatty pub, addressed by one of the movement's suit-wearing officer class, played in cameo by Frank Harper.
Turgoose is the picture's heart and soul, and it's a terrifically natural, easy and commanding performance. Turgoose's open face radiates charm, and then, when he goes over to the dark side of racism, a creepy, anti-cherubic scorn: almost like one of the little blond kids in Village of the Damned. But Meadows is always concerned to preserve a sympathetic core to Shaun, and in fact to all the skins. Even the deeply objectionable Combo is shown to be suffering from emotional pain.
Like Meadows' earlier pictures, Dead Man's Shoes and A Room for Romeo Brass, This Is England is about younger, vulnerable figures being taken under the wing of older, flawed men, and this personal theme here finds its richest and maturest expression yet. As to whether we should buy its implied leniency about skinhead culture: that is another question. The West Indian influence is advanced as proof that skins were not necessarily racist: yet it can't cancel out Combo's hate campaign against South Asians, the "Pakis" who "smell of curry", a campaign which goes quite unchallenged or even unremarked upon by any of the skins, good or bad.
The skinhead identity is, after all, obviously supposed to be more aggressive than that of other tribes: I remember as a 10-year-old cowering on the terraces of Watford football club in the early 70s, as the Luton boot boys got stuck in, and my father grimly telling me that the reason they shaved their heads that way was so the coppers couldn't grab them by the hair. Whether or not that is true, it certainly made the wearer's head look like a big, third clenched fist. And it's still difficult to get a handle on them.
Meadows appears to want to find emotional truths behind the bravado, to find reasons for the male rage. It's a valid quest, and there are telling and touching moments, particularly between Turgoose and Rosamund Hanson. I found myself wishing that their love story could occupy more of the film, maybe for the same reason that the Shane Meadows film I have enjoyed most is the one his real fans loathe: the comedy Once Upon a Time in the Midlands. But from the get-go of this drama, it is obvious that things are heading only one way: towards a climactic flourish of violence, and it's a glum business wondering to whom and from whom this is going to happen. This is a violent subject, and these are violent people, and yet I couldn't help feeling that Meadows is, as so often, more comfortable with machismo than with the humour and gentleness which play a smaller, yet intensely welcome part of his movies. However agnostic I confess to still feeling about his work, there's no doubt that Meadows is a real film-maker with a growing and evolving career, and with his own natural cinematic language. When I think of his films, I think, for good or ill: this is English cinema.”
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