Evaluation on the construction of storyboard

Our first storyboard for the initial idea was ineffective, messy and illogical. We broke the story board up for different people to do different shots. However we soon realised that this was not sensible and all got very confusing. This was no longer a problem when our idea was criticised and we made adjustments because we would have to create a new storyboard. Learning from experience, two group members, Tom Cunningham and I talked through the storyboard and went through shot by shot together. Although this was a slow process it ensured that we had a clear, tidy new storyboard.
I am very happy with the storyboard in which Amy Milan and Tom Cunningham produced for our group. It is very neatly present with the essential information on it. It is clear to understand which is important because the documents are very important for the director on the day of the shoot. The director needs to be able to read these documents easily, so that everything runs smoothly for our group. The shots are logical and creative. Since we adjusted our idea, our shots are more original and our narrative is less clichéd.
The shots are realistic, practical and sensible as we are not going over the top. This gives us as a group the ability to use the simple shots to make a compelling, effective sequence for our target audience. Although the drawings aren’t brilliant, they are clear and good enough for us to understand and make sense of along with the writing. As a group and individually, I am happy with what we have achieved so far.

New Storyboards

These are our final storyboards that we have created as a guideline for our production.

Old Storyboard

These are our old storyboards. We created them according to the usual, undeveloped idea and then had to change them according to the accurate storyline.

Our Location

These are pictures of our location where we are going to shoot part of opur production.

Our Design

This is our design because we called our production "MILANO" Productions. Well work on it with Photoshop to make it more effective.

My Version

In my opinion our new version is very effective because it makes sense and fulfills all the aspects of a thriller. It is interesting because people being schizophrenic is a theme that is accurate and very scary because we don’t really know what it is. Another thing is the way our narrator behaves is very scary because his mind is ill and therefore we don’t know what he is going to do next. Another thing that makes this production good is that his wife doesn’t know that he has another life, but we do and therefore the audience is scared. It holds together because the narrative TOM has a reason for doing the things he does because his brothers face is deformed and therefore he can’t stand to see other people’s faces. I would sent this to Hollywood to Warner Bros. because they are a huge film company which produces very expensive productions and I think that this movie can be brilliant if Hollywood would spent money for it because you could have lots of “police work” in it as well and the use of CGI for deformed faces and even explosions of the cellar which would make this simple production a very high class thriller/horror production in the style of “Seven”. Hollywood is able to do those things and therefore I wouldn’t sent it to a British film company because this horror production should have elements of a thriller and therefore be financed and given the green light by Hollywood to make it a huge production.

What is a Film Treatment?

A Film Treatment is necessary because it allows the screenwriter to communicate their screenplay idea in a brief but compelling way and it is a powerful creative tool. Writing a Treatment is a fast way to test out an idea before it is transformed into a script and it allows a screenwriter some distance between the idea and the script. Further it can help the screenwriter to work out problems and determine if the story holds up. Also the story can then be developed according to what the people want to see.
The length of a treatment is appropriate to the final product. It is necessary to communicate the story of the narrative and the treatment should tell the whole story and should focus on the highlights. It is a document that is a scene by scene breakdown of the actual script.
A Treatment should read like a short story and should be written in the present tense. It should present the entire story with its end and maybe even use key scenes and some dialogue from the screenplay that it’s based on. It should include a working title, name and contact information of the writer, introduction to the key characters and answer the questions “who, what, when, why, where”.
Another important aspect is that it should break up the story into three parts which are the foundation stores for the building of the story.
Act 1  Situation, characters, conflict is introduced.
Act 2  Conflict begins and expands until it reaches a crisis
Act 3  Resolution; conflict rises to one more crisis and then it is resolved

Three Act Treatment

ACT ONE1. Man steps out of his car in front of a scary looking building. He is isolated and in the dark. He walks into his ‘workshop’ where all of his tools are laid out neatly on a table. He starts ripping bed linen up, stabs knifes through to make eye holes and stitching them back together again to make masks.2. The man picks up the mask, and walks down a corridor towards a trap door. He opens the trap door and walks down the spiral staircase. He lights a match which lights the candle. Then we see a girl tied up against a wall and she is whimpering. She wets herself and then the camera tilts up to see the girls face. Suddenly the man pulls the mask over the girls face and the title appears.3. The man puts the child into a cage with lots of other children who are all wearing masks. Suddenly one child pulls off his mask and the man gets very aggressive. He takes out his knife and pulls the mask back over the head of the child. Full of anger, he runs out to his workshop where there are family pictures on the wall. In one, he and his brother are standing between his parents. However his brother’s face is deformed. Next to this photo there are newspaper articles about a car crash.4. The man looks to the left and we see his brother sitting in a corner, unable to move with a mask in front of his face. However we can see his face is deformed because there are holes and rips in the mask. Suddenly we see lights flash down the corridor and the man grabs his brother and runs away.ACT TWO5. A female police officer called Annie comes to rescue the children in the cage and sees the pictures on the wall, but the pictures of the man are gone. The police officer is angry and says ‘There’s nothing I can do right now, we can’t find him’. She steps into her car and drives home for dinner with her husband. However when he greets her, we see that in fact it is the man who captures the children.6. At that moment we realise that the man is a schizophrenic. The man says very nervously, ‘Did you find anything new?’ while having dinner. His wife answers, ‘No not yet, but we found a picture of a family’. The man gets very scared and tells his wife that he isn’t feeling very well. He gets up runs outside and jumps into the car and drives away.7. On his drive, he gets flashbacks of himself with his brother. He is disgusted at the sight of his brother’s disfigurement, so he takes the bed sheets covers his face to hide it. Suddenly his phone rings and his wife is screaming ‘Look, look... I know it all of it – your brother is here... HELP!!’ACT THREE8. The man is driving the car and suddenly stops, he doesn’t know what to do, but then he spins the car around and goes back to the house to rescue his wife.9. As he enters back into his house, he sees his wife tied up on a chair unable to move and his brother is standing in front of her, no longer wearing a mask. His brother smiles at him and says ‘Hello Brother’. The man is still close with his brother, so he thinks of ways to save his wife. However, as he looks into the face of his brother, he changes mind and looks back to his wife with an evil facial expression. He looks at the knife in his brother’s hand and says ‘Give it to me, let’s do it together’.10. Annie screams and tries to get away as her husband says, ‘Let me do it’. The man hands the knife to his brother and he walks towards Annie. However he sets her free and they both walk towards the main male character (referred to throughout as ‘the man’). His wife says, ‘I’ve always known who you were Tom’. She walks towards him and cuts his face open, leaving it bleeding. She rips up bed sheets which were neatly folded after coming out the tumble dryer just hours before, and places it over his face.The man’s brother says ‘Good job darling’, kisses her, then stabs her in the heart and leaves the house.

Further Thriller Production

Today we were criticized for our thriller idea and had to change it because it didn’t really made sense. Therefore we needed to change every production we have started to make a better one. We wanted to have a man getting out of his car in front of a house, looking round, hearing creepy noises and seeing lights in front of a house. Then he should go back to his car and have flashbacks of potato sack masks that are being stitched and children that are wearing them. Then he sits back in his car and drives away until suddenly the flashlights of the car hit a child with a potato sack mask in the middle of the street. The man blinks and the child is gone. Then the camera zooms into the car and the child is in the back seat. We were criticized a lot because the teachers felt that the idea was already taken too often (Friday 13th, the orphanage, Strangers) and potato sacks wouldn’t really fit into our environment. The biggest criticism we got was the fact that the story didn’t make a lot of sense, therefore we changed it to give it a real story.
In our short sequence you’ll see this:
Tom gets out of his car and walks towards the house. Then we do a montage shoot when he is sitting in the cellar ripping bed linen and cutting eyes and stitching them back together etc. During this sequence the titles will be flashed in. Then he suddenly hears a child laughter, takes his lamb and searches. The lamb lights hit the feet of a child and then the light goes up and we get a close up of a child screaming under such a mask. Cold breath comes out of his mouth and builds the title of the movie.
The idea of the total movie will be shown in the next post.

Start Process of our Thriller Production

Today we strated the process of storyboarding and talking about props and locations. As our Coursework we need to produce the beginning sequence of a Thriller/Horror Production which should last about 2 and a half minutes. I am in a group with Storm, Tom and Amy and we started the process of creating a storyboard by writing down the order of actions that are going to happen to then convert them into a storyboard. Amy is the Producer, Storm is the Director as well as me and Tom is the editor. We created a storyboard to make sure that when we are on the set we know excactly what and how we are going to shoot it and don't have to make it up. It provides instructions to the sound and camera crew and helps the director to organise the scene. A storyboard is also very hgelpful because if you are for example having a conversation in the sequence you don't take the camera, do the first sentense and then everyt b ody is turning round behind the other person so with the help of the storyboard you can form shots together and shot shots that are the same at the same time.
This is out list of actions so far :
Shots
1. The gate is closed and we see a car arriving and stopping in front of the gate
2. Tom goes out to open the gate and then drives through it (when the leaves blow up they from “Milano Production Presents”)
3. shot out of one of the windows in the house seeing the car arriving (we see the breath on the window and then a “A Storm Cunningham Film” is written in there”
4. pow shot of Tom looking at the house
5. shot from in front of the house seeing Tom getting out of the car and starting to walk
6. track shot of him going to the house
7. CU of his face looking around anxiously (next to him a door sign saying “featuring Tom and Alabama)
8. ECU of him looking through the window
9. mid shot of h8im hearing the noises
10. shot of the lights flashing behind the door
11. Tom walks back the mid shot and down the front door stairs until he ends in a long shot
12. camera sits in the back of the car and sees Tom arrive and enter the car
13. camera zooms into his eyes and the flashbacks begin
14. fast cut from long shot to ECU of the masks on the children (cold breath comes out and builds ( Produced by Amy Milan)
15. cut to Tom
16. shot of Tom stiching the mask (sticking stuff builds “Directed by Storm Webster and Stephanie Mareen”)
17. cut to Tom
18. bloody hands writing “Edited by Tom Cunningham”
19. zoom out of Toms eye
20. shot out of the window of the house seeing the car reverse
21. close up of tom using the gear stick
22. close up of him using the gas
23. camera in the backseat – view through the front side seeing the car leave
24. drives fast and the front lights hit a kid
25. shot from behind the kid looking at the front lights of the car
26. ECU of Tom blinking
27. pow shot of toim and the kid is gone
28. shot through the wind shield on the backseat is a child
29. cu of the child – breath coming out and building the title

Research Sources

In my free time I used a lot of clips on youtube to help me understand special camera effects, sound, lighting and atmosphere. Most of these clips were either movie scenes from Horror or Thriller productions or Trailers. One sequence that helped me a lot for the understanding of sound and music was the legendary shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho".


This taught me the important role music plays in a sequence and made me realise, that music is the one main thing that makes this scene work so perfectly-even though it is so old.


This end scene from "Seven" also helped me a lot with the music, location and atmosphere because all these factors make it work. The scene plays in the middle of nowwhere but still it works because the camera angles and music create a great atmosphere and the audience can feel Brad Pitt's pain that he feels for the loss of his wife.


The beginning sequence of "Casino Royale" helped me a lot because I saw the importance of editing. The way this sequence is edited is very interesting because it is in black and white because it is in the past and the camera cross cuts from the calm conversation to the violent killing scene. The killing scene is cut very quickly and therefore has a good effect on the audience.

Chosen Thriller Production

The Thriller we have been choosing in our group will be a great Production. It is about a man driving home and on his way he meets a boy with a scary mask standing in his way and however he tries to turn, the boy is still in front of him.
The idea is very basic but I think it is going to work very well because of the effects we can built in. The light of the car which will light the boy are going to look scary and maybe we will even get some fog in the night. Another point is, that the mask, that the boy is wearing is very scary and this works because then you don't see his face or his emotion.
Another point is that the boy is kind of supernatural because he is always in front of the car no matter how hard the man tries to get away.
To have a great story we will have cues about the fact that the man had done something wrong or even killed the boy.
I think this Thriller is going to be great because of the masks and the effective lightings.

Powerpoint Presentation

My Thriller Idea

My Thriller Idea was to have 2 Girls sitting in a room and having a Girls-Evening. They invited a third one to make fun of her and as they are sitting there you can always see something evil in her eyes. As she goes to the toilette die other girls talk about the special "Halloween-Game" where you write "DEVIL" with lipstick on the mirror and when you turn the lights out a ghost will come out to kill you. They do it and as the girl comes out the toillette they turn the lights out and the audience sees that the girl coming out of the mirror is actually the third one. As nothing happens the two girls put the lights back on and the third one turns around to make the light out. The two girls scream because they are getting killed and the screen is dark except of the letters which spin around and form the title.
To give you a more detailed explanation i will put the Powerpoint Presentation onto this Blog!

Thriller Posters

Seven is a great poster because it refers to the title of the movie but also gives a little overview about the movie. Final Destination and Gothika are put in blue which a really like because it looks cold and scary.
Life and let die is an example of a espionage movie and i love the poster because it attracts the attention.

Horror Posters

This is an example of a Horror Poster from the Movie Saw and in my opinion this works very well because the letters look really scary and the special chair this person is sitting on makes the viewer wonder what it is and how it works. The fact that the person on the chair is wearing high heel shoes but a pig head makes us interested in what has happened to her.

The other movie is Drag me to hell, an example of a supernatural horror thriller and i like the Poster because it shows the unknown which makes us interested in it.

The next one is the exorcism of Emily Rose and I like the Poster because of the fog, the huge tree and the esorientated looking girl. The other one is a very old poster but i still like it because it shows pure horror and fear.

What is a Thriller?

A Thriller contains a meta-genre which are the emotions and reactions that should come from it, for example fear. Thrillers rely on the plot, fear in the audience, apprehension, suspense or you could just say basic worries that people have. These can be simple fears that make the audience emotionally involved. Thriller contain universal themes and work with a sense of delay because they use the time that the audience is waiting for something to happen to create suspense. Thrillers work because the are sadomsochistic because the audience likes seeing somebody else feeling discomfortable, they use ambivalence which means making the audience believe in what is happening and they are emotionally involved in what is happening.
There are different types of Thrillers, for example espionage or spythrillers like James Bond, Psychological Horror Thrillers like saw or supernatural thrillers like Drag me to Hell.
All of these genre are identified and classified by their key conventions which are the intricacy of plot, a complex unraveling narrative, a focus on fear, apprehension and suspense, a sense of delay and enigma codes which are mysteries and questions that the audience ask itself about what is happening and this also means that there is something unknown to the audience.
Other Conventions are that the audience pleasure derived from individuals discomfort and voyeurism, which means that we are aware of something that the character isn't.
If Thrillers contain each of these conventions they are good Thrillers and fulfil the expectations of the audiences.

Account of editing preliminary Task

We edited our Preliminary Task using Final Cut Pro. To get into the Programme we needed to enter the Password and find our Group Preliminary Task which was already put there by our teachers. by double clicking it we got to our work place where we could edit the sequence. There are two screens in the top right corner so therefore in one you can let one sequence take part and in the other one another. It was important to cut the different shots prom each other by putting the whole sequence into the timeline and then cutting out the different shots by pressing "i" when it starts and "o" when it ends. Then you have this single shot as a seperate file. After doing this with the whole sequence we needed to put them together and in order and then cutting beginning and ending to make everything fit. For this we needed to take the shots and put them at the right place into the timeline together with its sound and then cut them together to create a great flow.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Our Preliminary Task was to make film some sequences of a storyboard that was given to us and we did that in the old studio in our school which is next to the Music Tech class room and offers great light opportunities, space, doors that we needed for our sequence and silence. This location worked very well because there were two doors we could use, as it was said in the Storyboard, and we could use the special lighting to create a nice atmosphere. We used two spot lights that very focused on our two actors, creating shadows behind them and lighting up their faces. In the whole sequence I actually took a very active role (as well as all the others-because our whole group worked actively together to make a great piece of work) in the filming because I took the role of the producer. I focused the camera together with my partner, I made sure that the lighting was correct and didn’t create shadows we didn’t want and I also sometimes told the actors what to do, which worked very well because one of our actors actually started crying for us because it fit into the scene. I didn’t like the fact that we, and especially I was telling the actors what to do, but Lottie helped me and so they did exactly what we wanted them to do for us to even make a good piece of acting. We had soft light which created lots of shadows behind the actors, what fit to the scene because the soft light fit to the hurt of the “B” character and the shadows made it look like an evening scene. By having soft evening light underlined with shadows, the light was very effective because it represented a dark atmosphere and the hurt that character B felt because she was left by her lover. Our camera was set up in different angles and we first shot the whole sequence through a wide shot, then the whole sequence in a mid shot and so on to let the action play through the picture and this also makes it easier to cut after woods because we had enough space on the tape. With setting up the camera we also made sure that we didn’t cross the 180° line and because when we filmed the whole sequence from a wide shot and then a medium shot etc. we made sure that the tripod was in the correct level all the time, so if we had an over-the shoulder shot, the shoulder of our character was (hopefully) always in the right and same position. We also made sure that none of our group was standing in the light so that there were no shadows created we didn’t want. After shooting the scenes we were supposed to shoot we added some that we thought might add something to the story and give more extra detail for example the door opening and some more close-ups of facial expressions as well as point of view shots. To let everybody know what we are doing on the set we used the words “Standing by-running-action”. We said standing by to make everybody get ready, then running to make sure that the tape is actually running (we could see it on the time code) and action to let everything start. When the scene was over we said “cut” to end it.

Example of a short movie sequence

The Movie Making

Today we learned a little bit more about how to shoot a movie sequence. Our task was to do a Preliminary Practical Preparation and we were supposed to shoot 20 seconds. The story should be very basic, for example just picking something up from a table, but it was important to understand “how” to use the camera properly. The camera is on a still focus and lets the action play through so no matter what kind of shot you take the camera is always still and the action is taking part in front of it. We also learned about the 180° Rule. It says that if you for example have a two shot you draw an imaginative line between the two people and you can either shoot from the one side or the other but always in 180° and you are never allowed to cross that line because otherwise it will look as if they have changed positions and that would be a movie mistake. For example if you have a car driving through the desert and you let it start on the right side of the picture, then you can’t switch positions, or cross the line, because then it will look as if the car is driving in the other direction and maybe some people would interpret this as two cars crashing in each other which isn’t the intention. So you always have to film from one side and use the whole 180° but NEVER cross the line.

The Studio

In our second Lesson we have had a practical lesson in the Studio where two students should interview others in front of the camera. The Interviewer started with an introduction and then started asking questions that the person had to answer. While we were at the studio 6 people were important. Of course the interviewer and the interviewed but also the three people who did the lighting, and the camera man who also gave instructions. The people who did the lighting had to put them in the right position so that the people could see everything and the people who were watching the show could have a good-lighted view on them. The camera man had to focus the camera onto the people and gave the instructions. After a sequence the lights had to directly be switched off. Before we started to film the director said: “ready-action“ and after the sequence he said “cut” to end the scene.

Movie Sequence Analysis-The Holiday

Media Prep 4 – Textual Analysis Assignment
by Stephanie Kufferath
I analyzed the first 10 minutes of my favorite movie “The Holiday” which is a love-comedy and was published in 2006 and directed by Nancy Meyers. The movie is about two women who are desperately in love and change houses and lives for two weeks to try to find themselves. In these two weeks they meet new partners and finally begin to live a better life full of love. The Sequence I am going to analyze is made up out of 5 little and 1 big sequence. The main sequence takes part in an office around Christmas time in the year 2006.
In the beginning the camera fades in to a mid shot and shows a pair kissing each other while the names of directors and actors are screened in at the bottom. The Soundtrack is played non-diagetical and is a slow piece of music. Then the camera zooms out to an establishing shot which shows that the male character Miles is playing the soundtrack for the movie scene that we have just seen. The shot is used to show that Miles is a film music producer and to him the music is diagetic. After this the camera zooms to show his facial expression while he is looking at his girlfriend Maggie. This is represented by the point-of-view shots between Miles and Maggie. His point of view is a low-angle and hers is a high-angle because she is standing and he sits on his chair. This should also represent that he is the one chasing after her and she “wears the trousers”. At this point the commentary and the talk to the audience by one of the main Protagonists called “iris” starts and she describes the different relationships and love situations that refer to the characters which are presented. The camera crabs right to another scene where you can see two people in a car looking at each other but they do not have anything left to say. The camera zooms up to a close up and there is a two-shot to show their facial expressions while the music is going on playing non-diagetical. While Iris continues to talk about relationships the camera tilts up to a mise-en-scene which shows that they were sitting in a car and are stuck in a traffic jam around Christmas time. After this the camera cross cuts to the bedroom of an old man with this picture of his wife in the left hot spot while Iris says that “for others, love is simply lost”. Another cross cut into a bar where the camera is tracking a young boy who is flirting with a girl and finally walks over after some point of view shots which express that they are looking at each other. All these cross cuts introduce us to the main characters in the whole movie and show us, with what kind of love they are dealing, so the audience directly knows who is who. After this the camera finally cuts to Iris with a full shot which shows that she is working in her Biro on a present. The camera zooms in and crabs to Iris with a mid shot showing how she is packing the present and then an insert shot to show how she puts the present into her cupboard. Then she gets up while her voice continues and the camera tracks behind her and finally focuses her when her voice says “yes you are looking at such an individual”. Then she starts describing her experience with love and we see a point of view shot to the man she loves. While she walks over to talk to her friend the camera tracks behind her and ends up in a two shot. When they start their dialogue the soundtrack stops and we can hear a diagetic melody which are Christmas songs that are played in the office. While they talk about Iris’s relationship to Jasper the camera uses an over the shoulder shot to focus on the person who is talking, until a third person is entering and the camera jump cuts to Iris sitting back in her office working on her computer. While she is typing you can see her back until Jasper starts to talk and she turns around. Then the camera switches into a point of view shot to show Jasper in a low-angle shot leaning on her door. During their conversation the camera cuts between point-of-view shots either high or low angle. His point of view is a low angle because he is standing which represents that she doesn’t mean very much to him and he just pretends as if. When Iris gives her present to Jasper the camera zooms into her face up to a close up to show how nervous she is giving him her present. In the middle of their conversation they are interrupted by their chief who wants to do a speech for their company and they have to get out. However there is a jump cut to Iris and Jasper walking through the people but the camera follows Iris because Jasper decides to leave to talk to other people. While she is standing in the crowd the chief is shown in a low-angle shot because she looks up to him. When he finally addresses her she is shown in a mid shot between the other people in a high-angle. When the chief announces that Jasper is getting married the camera zooms into Iris’s face to show how hurt she feels and the Soundtrack of the piano starts to play again to underline her emotions because the man she loved for so long did not even tell her that he’s is getting married and told her 2 minutes before that he loves her. After Iris and Jasper exchange views Iris leaves and the camera cuts to a Montage sequence which shows Iris home way. She needs to go through London, go by train, through her little village and finally to her little cottage where there is another insert shot to piece of wood which says “Rosehill Cottage”. When Iris enters her house the camera zooms out and shows her house with the lights switching on to show that he had entered. When Iris starts crying the Soundtrack stops and the camera fades out into dark.
All in all this scene shows very clearly what kind of person Iris is like because the camera shots and movements represent her character to an extent that you can identify with her. She is very breakable and doesn’t have any luck with love and this is a feeling that many people know, so when she is talking to the audience in the beginning everybody can identify with her and sympathy is created. Another motion that is created by the camera is that the viewer directly dislikes Jasper because the Close-ups show very well that she is hurt by him and he doesn’t care at all. I really like how the first ten minutes of the movie are built up according to cuts, because all important characters and stories are introduced shortly with the help of Irises speech. This is one of my favorite movies because I think a lot about love and can totally understand the feelings of the Protagonists.

Still and Video Camera

The Camera shots are very important to make a movie or a picture look good, because if you use the wrong settings it looks weird.
The battery on top of the camera shows how many minutes the battery still lasts. The time code ( - - : - - : - - : - - ) shows how many seconds, minutes or hours you have already recorded and the last bit of the time code shows the frames per second which is 25 on this camera so it moves up to 24 and starts at 0 again.
The number 16:9 shows the wide aspect because if you shoot in 16:9 the movie can be used for a original TV. (The old ones who looked like a square had been 4:3)
The little window in the camera tries to show the hotspots of the shot. DVCAM 48K means Digital Video Camera and 48 K is the Sound quality which is used for the movie.
The Number 50 stands for the shutter speed light and if it is increased it is sharper, which is good for action scenes. It is very important to NEVER but it below 50 because the pictures won’t be sharp at all.
If there is 18 db written on the ground of the window you should put it at zero because it makes extra light which you normally do not need.
Another very important setting is that if you film outside you need to switch on the sun symbol and if you are indoor the lamp symbol should be switched on because otherwise everything inside would be yellow.

Tripods

Today we have had a practical lesson about Tripods. Tripods are used to make a still image which lets the action play through. This means that you focus the Tripod with the camera up to a certain area and let the action go through it because then you’ll have a better view without irritations by the camera.
The Tripod can be moved and locked in lots of different positions. It is very important that whenever you move it, it needs to be perfectly locked. As well as all the legs etc are movable you can also tighten the pan and till instructions. If you want to pan or tilt softer or harder you can use the locking nuts and make sure the camera moves the way you want it to.
To put the camera on top of the Tripod you need to push the button, lock it after woods and make sure the camera is perfectly still.

Photoshop

Practical Lesson: Photoshop
Today we started working with Photoshop and learned the first basics which were how to cut things out and how to put other things in. Another thing we learned was how to work with Layers and to understand that you only get used to Photoshop if you practice using it and play around with it.
We started of opening the Adobe Photoshop and getting an image in it by taking one from the Internet or one our teacher Matt McIvor gave us. Then we opened the file and cut things out with the Rectangular Marquee Tool, then edit and copy it, and then paste it to make it “movable” through the Layers.
We learned three different way of cutting things out. First by simply drawing out the subject we wanted to cut out. Secondly by using the magnetic colour tool which follows the colours in the picture which is useful if you just want to cut out a black coat for example. Third, by using the Polygonal Tool where you can cut things out more detailed by making a circle or a figure out of lines.
Another important point was how to work with the Layers. The picture you are working with is usually in the background layer and this is where you see the complete picture. If you cut something out it opens another layer where only the object which was cut out still exists. You can only work on the whole picture if you are on the background layer.
Last we learned about Pixels. Pictures are pixels which are made out of little boxes you can see if you zoom a lot. There need to be 72 pixels per inch to make it good-looking on a TV screen. The Computer Pixels if you do a movie need to fit to the PC which has 720*576. All TV’s have a different size, but they all pixel the same size.

Horror Poster

The Media Prep: Image Production and Analysis
By Stephanie Kufferath
I was required to produce a Horror movie Poster that I created on my own with my own pictures and own ideas. My Poster shows a squid which is watching scuba divers in the ocean. His eye is in the foreground to make it look as if he is trying to follow them with his eyes and the divers can’t notice it. I think this is a good Horror movie poster because it is under the ocean in the depth of the sea and many people are scared of what might lie and wait for somebody down there. I took the picture on a diving Trip with my father in the red ocean in Egypt and now worked on it with Photoshop to make the squid more noticeable and put the anemones further into the background. I also screened in a title, a slogan, a directors name, actor names and a film company.
With lighting down the anemones and brightening up the squid the Hotspots are the squid in the foreground and the group of divers in the background swimming in the middle of the ocean. I also like that the viewer looks into the picture because behind the divers you can image the wide open see and the Poster gets its own depth. Another important thing that attracts the viewers attention are the colors because down in the ocean everything looses it’s color and everything is blue, but in this movie Picture the “main characters” which are the sea monsters and the divers are colored. I chose the picture with the squid because it is kind of red and this color represents a warning and draws attention to it. You can also identify it with blood and death that might come from the squid. The flippers and the oxygen bottles of the divers are yellow which builds a great contrast to the blue of the ocean.
I chose the title “depth because I think that the ocean is very deep and most people fear exactly this because they don’t know what might be living down there. I also think the title fits very well because in the Poster you can see that the bottom of the sea is falling down to the left side and goes deeper and deeper. The slogan says: “In the depth of the ocean nobody will ever find you, nor hear you scream”. I chose this slogan because it says exactly what people fear about the ocean because under the water it is difficult to communicate, you depend on your oxygen bottle and nobody will ever find you because in the middle of the ocean you are just a small person. The actors and directors I simply imagined because I wanted to create something new but it didn’t really refer to anything that I had in my mind.
In my Poster the signifier is the squid and the ocean because everybody knows what a squid is. The signified is the danger that comes from it because it can kill or attack the divers and there might be other cruel animals waiting in the depth.
All In all I personally think that this is a good example of a horror movie poster because the ocean is something we do not totally know and we have got no control of it, which is the reason why it is so scary. I also think that the poster portraits a psycho horror movie like “jaws” because in the ocean you can only see about 15 meters far and deep and for this reason a dangerous animal can come very quickly out of the dark without anybody noticing. In my opinion this poster makes the movie attractive because it doesn’t really show blood or an attack of somebody so that the action of the movie is taking place in the mind of someone who is looking at the poster.

Blade Poster

My own creation of the Blade Poster.

Family

This is me with my family again in Egypt at the Photoshooting. It was taken by the Photographer during the day and he turned it black and white. It is a medium shot.
My father and my mother, but my sister is missing because she wasn't able to come with us to Egypt because she had to stay in school to study. =(
I am in the Hotspot on the left corner and because the mise-en-scene is just us and the bar the focus is on me and my family

Europapark

This is me in the Europapark in Rust where I have been two months ago with my boyfriend.

The Europapark is an entertaining park with lots of rollercoasters and shops and i enjoyed it a lot. The trip to this place was a present for the 19th Birthday of my boyfriend.

The picture was taken with him in a low-angle shot during the day and shows me having fuun with these little animated mouse figures that i really loved =D

Friends in Germany

This picture was taken a long time ago when I had been with my friends at the football match in my home town Dueren. It was set up a place to watch Germany playing againist somebody else I can't remember.

The picture is a wide shot which shows some of my friends together dressed up in flags of Germany. The Picture was taken by a friend of mine in a little low-angle shot, at the end of the day while the sun is going down behind the buildings.

I like this picture because it represents my nationality and shows a coouple of friends and I love the day the picture was taken because Germany won the match.