Colours used in film

when deciding how to light a set and what colours to use, the director will usually think about what emotion he wants to portray to the audience. In film, each colour is known to portray a different kind of image, and you can usually tell a lot about a character and the themes of the film through the use of colour. For example, in the film "The Wild Bunch" the colours used are very pasty, drab and seedy. these are colours such as brown. they also used black and white in certian areas. The reasons for this was because they wanted the area to look like a nasty worly with little colour and also the colour blck means bad, which is what the wild bunch were. It also makes the location look like a washed out world.

Different colours are also known to say a lot about a character in a film. You can usuallt tell alot about a character by the clother that they wear, and what colour they are. For example, somebody who wears lots of red is usually known as an outgoing, active and physical person, where as somebody whom wears lots of grey is usually known as self-reliant and independant.

Lighting

For our A level pieces at Hurtwood House we use two different types of lighting. These are redhead lights, and blonde lights. These are the standard types of lights used. They are ranged between 1000 pounds and 1500 pounds. This is artificial lighting which is more commonly known as tungsten.

When lighting a scene there is usually a norm for doing so. The first form of lighting you would usually use would be a spot light directly in front of the subject. This would light the subjects face as well as their body, however usually there will be one side of the face which is slightly shadowed which means you then have to use other lights to extinguish this shadow. This second light is called a fill light. The fill light is usually at 32 degrees to the spot light. This is a comforting angle for the viewer and it will get rid of the shadow on the subject. The third light used is the back light. The back light is usually around level with the subject, however instead of lighting up the subject, the light it set up to aim towards the wall behind the object to bounce back on to the object and give them a feel of depth on camera. This is the light that is used to create a 3d effect.

Types of Shot's

There are six main different types of shot sizes. Each shot size is used by the director to portray a different type of meaning to the audience member, whether it is to describe an emotion on somebody’s face, or whether it do establish an area or the scenery around it. These six main different types of shot sizes are an Extreme close up, a close up, a mid shot, a long shot, an extreme long shot and a wide angle shot.

Extreme close ups are usually used by the director to really put across a characters fear or amazement etc to the audience. They are usually so close to something that you can only see a certain part of the object. For example, if there was an extreme close up on someone’s face it may only be of their eyes, to show their feelings through their eyes.


Close ups are usually used by the director for the same sort of reason that they would use an extreme close up. They would be used to tell the audience what the character was either thinking or feeling. They can be used to introduce a character, so the audience know what he looks like etc. they are also more commonly used that ECU’s are.

Mid shot’s are shots that show a suitable amount of detail of the character to put their emotion across to the audience, yet it is just far away enough to make the audience feel as if they were looking at the whole subject.

Long Shot’s are used to show the entire person and also to relate them to the surroundings around them. In long shots you can see the whole of the person so you can also read the persons body language as the audience member. This can sometimes put across how the audience member is feeling.

In Extreme long shot’s the subject is incredibly small compared to the overall image. They are usually used to show the audience the area, rather to convey some kind of emotion from a character. They can also be used as establishing shots. These are shots that establish something to the audience. For example, they can be used to establish a setting to the audience.

Wide Shot’s are fairly much the same as extreme long shots. They are again used by the director more to show an area rather than putting across the emotion of the subject. And also like ELS’s, wide shots can be used for establishing shots.

Our pitch

Our pitch started of with myself, Ben Marks and Tom Warhurst telling Luke about our favourite idea. This was to do a music video to the song another girl, another planet sung by the Only Ones. The idea was based around a small rock band, touring around the country, and the story of what a regular day for them consists of. For example, there will be a performance scene of the band consisting of four people performing on a street outside, with a background of lost of posters of bands on a corrugated iron wall. There would also be scenes of them in their tour van, crowds at venues and them in their dressing room with groupies. Once we had told him this idea we discussed where any possible weak points were and whether all of our ideas were possible to do. Luckily Luke liked our idea, so he helped us slightly by hinting us in certain directions and then set us on our way. Overall the pitch was a success.

Research and Development

Our research and development started off with me and my group drafting 3 ideas for a music video each, and then between us choosing what we thought was the best idea. Once we had done this, we then started to research that particular song, and how we could shoot our idea for a music video. We started by scanning our original ideas, and finding all the floors in the idea and replacing them with doable ideas. We then researched who we though would be our best suited target audience. To do this, we looked at other videos and compared them to our idea, and from this we found out what our target audience would be. We then went on to shape our idea even further to attract our target audience.

We decided that we liked our idea so much that we put the majority of our time into our main idea, however I did also spend some time doing some research and development into one of my original ideas to do a music video to the clash, London calling. This was more of a safety net for us, so that if our idea was to fall through, I would have a back up plan ready.

Then came the pitching stage of our idea. For this we need to tell our teacher, what our idea was, the different stages of the video, who it was aimed out, what we were trying to portray through the video and how we thought we would do it.

The Five stages of production

1) The first stage is Research and Development. This is one of most important parts of the process as it determines how the majority of your product is done. It consists of both research of the product, and also the development. For pop videos, during the research stage you would need to research your competition, which are the other bands making music videos, and usually of the same genre. You also need to research the target audience. For this you need to decide what age the target audience would be, what gender they would be and also from what social class and background they would be from. Then once you have done all this research, you can look into possible ideas. You would base these ideas best to suit the audience from your previous research.

The development stage is also vital. There are several areas to the development stage. The first of these is the pitch. Once you have done all your research, you will pitch your product (music video) to the production company who you want to fund your video. Once you have done this you will have to create a time line, a treatment, a storyboard, a casting sheet, and the practicalities. You would also have to do camera testing, which is where you check to see if your actors would suit the part, on a camera.

2) The second stage is the Pre-production stage. In this stage you have to produce on of the most important, vital pieces of paper work you will create in the whole production process. This is the call sheet. The call sheet consists of everything! It has all the wardrobe outfits, the conformation of the cast list, the makeup list, the location details, including a map to get to the location. It has all the lighting plans, the set plans etc.

3) The third stage is the production process. This is an obvious stage. It is the stage where you make your film (the shoot day). In this stage you shoot all of the video, ready for editing and after works.

4) The fourth stage is the post production stage. In this stage you will put the film together. You will sort out all of the shots in the editing stage, and also all the credits and music that goes with those shots. You will also add any after works such as SFX, CGI and any animation you want to use.

5) This is the final stage, where you release your product. Even this stage isn’t easy though. For this you need to know where you want to release your product, who to and for how long. This will probably link back to your research, as you are most likely to release your product where it will be seen by your target audience.

Pop Video and Marketing Campaign. Our Brief.

THE BRIEF

You have to create:
- THREE MULTI MEDIA PRODUCTS
- TO ESTABLISH THE IMAGE AND BRAND OF YOUR SINGER AND GROUP and
- HELP SELL THE SONG FROM THEIR FIRST ALBUM.

The group or singer must be a NEW GROUP (even if they are doing a copy of an existing song).

The song is a SINGLE from their FIRST ALBUM.

The actual products to be produced are:
- THE POP VIDEO
- A DIGIPAK for the ALBUM
- A MAGAZINE ADVERT for the ALBUM