Ugly Betty

The postmodern text i have choosen to post is the US comedy drama Ugly Betty. Certain theories have suggested that due to television we now live in a 'three minute culture'. Much of the postmodernism within Ugly Betty supports Jean Baudrillard theory of the blurring of real and simulated. Another Baudrillard theory supported is that of hyper-reality. Celebrity culture is also seen within Ugly Betty, Victoria Beckham and Lindsay Lohan have both appeared as themselves within the series. Ugly Betty also supports Strinati's theory. Out of Strinati's five 'style over substance' is the one used the most throughout. As pointed out in the title 'Ugly Betty', Betty is seen as ugly within her world but is constantly reminded she is 'beautiful' on the inside, us as viewers are also reminded of this. Within Ugly Betty it also shows and represents to us that people in their world and the real world are stringly influenced by brands, the label is sometimes more important then the actual product itself, style over substance. This is shown in Ugly Betty in the fashion world.

Evaluation...

Thriller Music.... Garage Band...

Garage Band: We have learnt how to record our own music, due to plagerism... To do this we used garage band on the Mac Computers. Firstly we opened up a new track, and selected the software option... There are a variety of instruments provided. We experimented with different kinds of instruments to find which would blend best together. After alot of time spent moulding them, we decided that the flutes, organs and futuristic music suited the thriller styled music. After doing our questionaire we realised that the audience would expect to hear choral music, which fitted perfectly with our thriller opening. We used five seperate instruments: Orchestral String - this was the main sound the music was based around as this added a distant and eerie tone to the music. Serena Swirl (keyboard) was added on a low tone over the top, this added a low murmur to the music. We also used Aquatic Sunbeam and Bondi Breathe, also adding a creepy dark tone to the music. For every thirty seconds we used the Drum Kit to add a sense of suprise to the music, this is conventional to a Thriller.

The Matrix

Mise-En- Scene

• Black suits worn by men, looking professional
• Green Filter over the shots, like viewing the film through an old fashioned computer screen.
• Black Glasses are very secretive and also proffessional.
• Slow motion action, building up the tention - conventional to a thriller
• Dark room, with low lighting, like a cellar, this makes it seem like a police investigation and very dark and eerie.
• Rubbish on the floor
• Smashing of the light falling onto the floor, breaks the tension of the fighting.... conventional to a thriller.
• Blowing of a newspaper across the floor, like tumbelweed in America, this adds a sense of loneliness and apandement of this location, like a haunted house, no one wants to go there.

Camera Shots

• Mid-shot of man in suit wearing glasses, very intense expression on his face.
• Three shot of three men walking through the door, very powerful.
• In the Three shot, the men spred out and cover the whole screen, very dominating
• Extreme close up of the man standing in the middle which leads into a master shot of the room as the man in the middle is attacking the man originally in the room - conventional to a thriller with fighting
• Zooming into the action of the fighting, focusing of the punches and kicking
• Combination of over the shoulder shots between the two men fighting.
• Birds eye view shot of man lieing on floor after being thrown in the fight.
• Extreme Close-up of the glass light smashing.

Editing

• Straight Cuts between the shots, conventional to a Thriller as are very simple, and realistic continuity

Rebecca.

A textual analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca..
Rebecca was directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940, it was yet another one of his successful thriller films, with the sub genres of mystery and romance. It won two oscars and had 9 other nomination.
The opening starts of with the creepy sinistar music that creates much suspence for the veiwer, which is conventional for a thriller film. As the film is in black and white creates an old, spooky atmosphere fitting in with the music. The overall feel i get from the opening is very mysterious and unknown, with the voice over of the charcter Rebecca createds a mysterious and unusual atmosphere. Although the music appears cheerful at the beginig it changes when the character speaks to more dark. The fact that the music has quite a cheerful element at the begining creates a contrast making it all seem much mkore sinistar and odd. The setting of the opening is also dark and mysterious creating unease. I found when watching this that i was always waiting for something to jump out and for something sinistar to happen, always on edge. A very typical setting for a thriller to take place in a drak mysterious wood by a enormous haunted like mansion. Its as if were being told a story by an narrator, which is unusal thereforeis holding our attention. It as if were being told a story by a character after the events have occured. When the transistion is made from that haunted mansion straight on to the crashing sea suddenly grabs your attention and seems so distant from the creepy old footage you were just shown. Establishing the main character in the first scene, conventional. From what the characters costume it implys that he is of some proffesion of quite a high social class as he is wearing a suit and hat, from the dialogue of the character this also tells us this as he speaking to the young women in a authorative tone. As the female character obeys him shows his high status and social class also. He appears as quite a mysterious character, keeping the audience intrigued as they want to know more about him and the whole reveal of the story.
Overall the opening scene of Rebecca creates much suspence and mystery is does this through the non-diegetic music and the mysterious character. These conventions all keep the veiwer hooked and intrigued to the action going on, on set.

Evaluation:

Within our evaluation we included still shots of the pictures shown. These are just some of the pictures incoperated within our media product. We included the photo of Alfred Hitchcock as we explained within our evaluation the successful thriller films created by Hitchcock, films such as 'Psycho' 'The Birds' and 'Vertigo'.

The Birds

Textured Analysis...



Mis-En-Scene

• Colour of Writing is blue, the same colour as the sky... Cold, dull colour, conventional to a Thriller
• Black Crows flying aross the screen... Crows symbolysing death and decay.
• Alfred Hitchcocks name in blue (cold colour) in a bold font, symbolising his importance

Editing

• The Institutions name 'Universal Pictures Present' the shot fades out, symbolising death with a person or something dieing.
• Distorted Transitions between the different Titles, to show the disorder and confusion of the film, which is conventional to a Thriller.

Camera Shots

• Extreme close ups of birds flying past the screen. This shows the main plot and characters of the film, which links to the Title of 'The Birds'.

Filming For Evaluation:

We plan to film and take location shots tomorrow for our evaluation piece.
What we plan to film:

- Audience feedback.
- Shots of the different locations used.

All our footage will be uploaded and will be incoperated within our evaluation footage. We are uploading the footage of me and Millie directing the actor on set and explaing is in order to portray our directing skills and managment on set.
We have created a script which will use in our evalutaion in order to anwser the questions effectively. In our evaluation we will may be using a voiceover and will be filmed whilst anwsering.

Our Evaluation:

Notes..
- Time Keeping
- Location choices
- Editing
- Garage Band
- Title sequence
- Filming Process
- What i did
- Filming dates
- Blogging process
- How our idea has changed since we have started.

Ideas for evaluation..
We plan to upload footage from our film in to our evaluation while a voiceover is being played. We also want to add in footage of me and millie on location whilst filming, to show our directing skills.
We are also going to use still shots, one idea we had for using still shots is when anwsering what the audience type is for our media product, is to draw out a type of diagram explaing our target audience, male is one discription. We came to the conclusion of male based on all the sterotypes of all associated with a male viewer.
We also plan to include footage of the audience watching our opening, focusing on their reactions and asking them their thoughts and opinions, this would link in to the audience feedback.
We will be including sound within our evaluation to, we plan to upload clips of the music which we used in our opening, Also the voiceover of me and millie anwsering and the digetic sounds of the background noise whilst filming.
Linking to the 'Evaluation Notes' our film has developed quite a large amount since we first begun regarding the plot. Although this slowed down the precess of filming this allowed us to think and analyse more deeply about the plot and what we wanted.

Planning for evaluation...

There are multiple styles in which we can protray our evaluation through film. A directors commentry style documentary is what we are hoping to achieve. To gain a better understanding of how a commentry is filmed, we shall evaluate different film directors commentries. With in our directors commentry we plan to include audience feedback for our film, to understand how an outsider has viewed our production and whether they like it or not. We are also thinking of using a voice over, and extracts from our film, and also including other footage i.e footage of us directing the film. The voice over will cover how we filmed, where, what difficulties we came across and what we wanted the audience to feel while watching the opening of our thriller.

What we need to do.....

- Upload the storyboards
- Cut the Music at the end of the film
- Upload new missing person poster (as we changed the actress)
- Start planning evaluation
- Location Shots
- Audience feedback


Sophie and Millie

Annabel

We have finally completed our film, and are happy with the outcome.

Annabel.

Refilming....

Through the editing process we have come across some shots that didn't fit into the style ofour Thriller. Also some of the shots were with an unsteady hand, and so it wouldn't follow the continueity rule if we used them in our Thriller opening. Therefore we have to go back to our location and refilm some of the footage... including:

1) High angled shot of the victim walking through the bypass of subway. This is to give an effect of a security camera. We have to refilm this as it was an unsteady shot.

2) Low angle of victim walking down the stairs outside. The lighting didn't work the first time, so we might have to reconsider the positioning of the camera.

3) Close up of feet walking down a flight of stairs. This was an unsteady shot, need to use a tripod.

4) Mid shot low angled shot of the victim walking down the stairs inside. The positioning of the victim wasn't right, therefore need to rethink this when on set.

5) Extreme close up of the hand going around the corner while holding the banister. We need to redo this to make the shot flow, as the duration of the footage was not long enough to flow after we had edited the footage.

There are a few more shots that we need to film, which are as followes:

1) Missing Poster Shot

2) Knife shot (either with a shadow or the real thing)

We are still uncertain whether to film the scene of the victims picture being crossed off. If we do decide to use this scene in our film opening, we will use a picture of the victim walking, therefore to give the effect of the killer stalking the victim.



BRING TRIPOD!!!



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Music...

The Soundtrack for our Thriller has now been imported into iMovie along with our footage. Through importing our soundtrack, we have discovered that how something as simple as music, is more powerful and disturbing (when following the conventions of a Thriller) than the clips of film. The music adds a degree of intensity to the film, with a slow murmering beat continueing throughout, like a heartbeat.




Sophie and Millie

Touch Of Evil.

Touch Of Evil is a thriler directed by Orson Welles, the film was made in 1958. In falls within the thriller genre and has the sub-genres of crime and corruption.
Within the opening scene there is a pacey non-deigetic music played through out, in the track there is what sounds like a ticking noise relating to the bomb which is hidden within the car acting as a consatant reminder to us of the danger which will follow. This puts the audience at edge as it creates suspence and an uneasy tension.
There is also diegetic sounds such as the whistle from the policemen directing the traffic, the dialogue from the characters and the everyday noises of a town. The opening is not in technicolour which creates quite a dark a bleak effect.. setting the scene. You are also being introduced to the main characters, all of these conventional to a thriller. The large explosion is where the action really begins as apart from the bomb the only dangerous thilling prop or event. The man and women walking along seemed to me the establishing characters, both wearing fashionable costumes showing they are wealthy, with the man in a suit and the women in a dress and heels. Although within this opening the music doesnt really create much suspence, it more the constant reminder whenever you see the car, of the bomb, always wondering and thinking about whats going to happen next.

Thriller Filming..

We have now completed a large percent of our filming. We uploaded our footage and have found some of the shots dont fit in with our style so plan to re-film certain shots asap. We plan to carry on editing the footage we will use, continuity editing.
During filming we used three different locations which are close together..
1. The stairs in the mulit-storie car park.
2. The subway tunnel.
3. The long pathway.as shes walking
We also used a large variety of different shots such as a low angle shot from behiend the railings of the victim, this could connotate our victim is being trapped as she is seen from our point of veiw walking behiend the bars.
We are also going to make the action on screen fit with the music that we have created on Garage band, to make it fit and create suspence succesfully.
Within our opening we have two characeters the female victim and the villian- the kidnapper/stalker, throughout the opening you never see the threat just form his/her point of veiw shot, this will bring the audience in to a state of unknowing and hooked as they will want to find out who this mysterious villian is, pulls the veiwer in.
The costume of our innocent victim is plain and simple potraying to us she is just an ordinary girl. By making our victim an ordinary girl can make the audience relate to her, allows them to build a relationship, this could also make it seem more real in a sence that this could happen to anyone, even them, making their experience more shocking and disturbing. Causing and effect upon the audience.

Filming

Our plan for today was to film our first section to our opening but due to the weather conditions again it would ruin the continuity aspect. Instead we are changing our filming dates to half term so we dont have the difficulty of getting our actors out of their lessons. Hopefully the weather will settle as we plan to film a small section after school.
Millie and Sophie.

Filming....

Missing Poster scene:
Camera Shots..
-Establishing shot of poster
-slow zoom into the poster

Here is the mock up for the Missing Poster which we have created...