Tuesday 22 October 2013

Black Fish

Class Discussion-
  • Bias against SeaWorld but has a purpose to it 
  • documentaries have to be bias to make their point - should they only be informative?
  • could argue that SeaWorld has shown their side through police reports etc
  • more work could of been done to show other side
  • designed to create a debate - inspire debate
  • does it break or honour the contract with the viewer to manipulate or not?
Codes and conventions-
  • Interviews
  • from wide shot to medium close-ups for emotion 
  • unseen/amateur footage to back up points - still engaging even though amateur (creative) building a narrative 
  • music - manipulation tool. (example - tension music on shots of whales playing to show them as aggressive, builds tension to make you think danger is coming)
    • sub-conciously tells you how to feel (certain tracks make you feel certain emotion) 
Representation-
  • Didn't over do how bias they were 
  • Could have made current SeaWorld employers look worse by shots/music but didn't 
  • showed adverts for SeaWorld - sinister
  • Ex SeaWorld employers but no current or statements from SeaWorld
  • 'Whale Capturer' is made to feel sorry feel because of how he's represented - crying/sorry for what he's done
  • 'Dawn' - represented as a nice person etc but documentary doesn't clearly state who's fault it was 
    • is this intentional to not seem bias? 
    • or is it intentional to show that even its human error its still SeaWorlds fault 
Audience-
  • who is it aimed at?
  • audience in there to interact with 
  • contract with the viewer - assume what you are being told in factual 
  • uses documentary codes and conventions and format to make you believe it is fact



Friday 11 October 2013

Film Advertising - The Blair Witch Project


Film advertising

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project features 3 film students who go into the woods, hoping to make a documentary on the legendary ‘Blair Witch’. But the students never return and their footage is discovered a year later. 

With the poster release your initial expectation of The Blair Witch Project is that it is a horror with its typical horror codes and conventions; Dull colours, mainly black to demonstrate the theme of death, red writing which emphasizes blood and a woods which are typical locations in horror films. We also see a symbol which is another devise used in horrors. The picture in the foreground below is also chilling and thriller-like with the shadow but also gives us our first insight into it being a found footage film due to the poor lighting and position of the image. ‘Blair Witch’ hints at its horror genre and ‘project’ also gives the audience a clue that it could be in a documentary style or self-filmed. The image of the girl in the hat is also the only official poster to be released, this would have been done to further the audiences belief was real was real and they didn’t have professional pictures taken for a poster. I think this poster gives you a good expectation of what the film will be like leading the audience to enjoy it. 

The feedback at the first screening of The Blair Witch Project to an audience of the general public which was 2 and a half hours at the time came back to be a bit slow, too long and boring. The directors Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick decided to cut the film to 81 minutes and knew they’d need something else to make the film a success. The film incidentally was a success due to its massive interactive and viral marketing campaigns, being one of the first to cleverly use this way of advertising which created such a large buzz and ground breaking campaign.

The makers advertised the film as being entirely true and the footage used was actually real footage found in the woods. They listed the characters in the film as missing/dead and posters and websites were created for their safe return/mourning of the 3 film students. The images below show posters used in the advertisement of the campaign.

Telephone numbers and websites were created for anyone who had any information or sightings of the 3 to contact. This made the audience truly believe that the footage was real and these ‘characters’ were missing. The directors knew that ‘If enough believed it, then it had to be true’. The posters were spread around the Sundance and Cannes film festivals on their first release and they even went as far as listing the actors as dead on IMDb. With such huge publicity, 3 months on the low budget film of just $60,000 made and incredible £750,000 on opening weekend in the UK.

When it was eventually and slowly discovered that the actors were in fact alive and well the directors still insisted the legacy and story of the Blair Witch to be true. The website www.blairwitch.com giving detailed descriptions of real backpacks and reels of film tape and cans found in the woods. Also claiming that it was re-in acted on the true story of what was found in the diary Heather kept, also discovered in the woods.

The diary was a part of the merchandise also used as replicas being sold as a way to promote the film. Along with other types of merch like caps, t-shirts, hoodies etc and also beanies similar to those in the poster with the Blair Witch symbol printed on them. The Blair Witch video games are a trilogy of action-adventure games based on the back story of the movie The Blair Witch Project, another set of merchandise sold with the advertisement of the film. There was also a series of 8 books ‘The Blair Witch Files’ by Cade Merrill based on the film, which became increasingly popular after the release of the film. There was also a set of limited edition comic books released after the film as collector’s editions showing the films popularity. In addition, the film was also originally in a documentary style with clips of the case after the film makers disappearance with interviews with the police and family etc. The producers decided to cut this out and concentrate on the story. The additional footage was used on the dvd release "The Curse of the Blair Witch" and "The Blair Witch Legacy" and titled as ‘newly discovered footage’, also with director and producer commentary, production notes, cast & crew bios, and trailers. This extra footage on the dvd was advertised so it would make the audience want to buy it to find out more about the disappearance. A sequel of the film, ‘Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2’ with a similar story line to the original was released by a different director a year later but without the backing of the campaign, it was poorly received by critics. A third film was written but never made due to the failure of the second film.

There has been many reviews of the film, with most often being about the campaign rather than the actual film. The image below shows the review from Rotten Tomatoes.


As you can see the film received a very high rating from critics but an average rating from the general public audience. I think this is because the audience were mainly focusing on the viral campaign and because it had such a big buzz about it they expected the film to be better than it was. If the film hadn’t had such a successful advertising it may have received a higher score. Most horror fans also like gore and violence so may have been disappointed with its slow pace and lack of blood. In addition, found-footage style films were also only starting to be introduced, so many people were not used to this type of film and found them confusing and disorientating. The film received a higher review from critics because when they may have watched the film before the cinema release so the advertisement wasn’t at its peak yet. The critics would’ve also been more interested in the new age of found footage films and enjoy how the directors had adapted this new ‘amateur’ style to their film. Critics would also have a greater background knowledge of the film so would of have better idea of the small budget and been impressed with the film they managed to produce.

There are many spoofs of The Blair Witch Project such as ‘The Blair Thumb’, ‘The Bunk Witch Project’ and ‘The Tony Blair Project’ some of which affiliated with the original.  There are also some references to the film in other films and TV shows. In ‘The Simpsons’ there are several references to the film with one of them being when Lisa is shopping for a camping trip and buying ‘Blair Witch repellent’. There are also some parts of The Blair Witch Project that mirror other films, for example when the map is misplaced and sudden realisation that they are lost reflected Sartres ‘No Exit’. These examples of intertexuality’s show how popular the film has become with the question of whether it is still real or not arising today.

The distributors set a very wide release date across the world. For the US, it was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival on the 25th of January, it was then released in cinemas on the 30th of July. Just over 2 months later it was first shown in the UK at the Raindance Film Festival then premiered on the 22nd of October. The large gap between the US and UK release was to build up more anticipation for the UK release, It was so widely acclaimed in the US that the opening weekend in the UK was mostly sold out. With a gap of nearly 3 months between each release it gave the distributors time to concentrate properly on each release.

In conclusion, the success of the campaign of the film is said to be more of a success than the film itself. It is one of the largest budgets to gross ratio films, showing the advertising of the film was very well and cleverly executed.

resources:
 http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/mobile/m/blair_witch_project/
http://www.blairwitch.com/
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project

Tuesday 8 October 2013

"Runaway" - 10 week movie ideas

Group
Paige Archer
Aimee Lister
Liam Meade
Molly Noble
    - Palm Productions

Style
Silent film
Black and white
Film noir
Some words/dialog written in white

Synopsis
Teenage girls runs away from home and we see her slow decent of life. Clips of her begging, busking, thieving, sleeping around, sofa surfing.


Main Characters 
"Her" - the runaway

Associate Characters
Mum and dad (which we see in flash backs)
People on the street
Man she sleeps with

Location
Various city locations

Running time
20 minutes

Genre
Drama

PROPOSAL - 48 hour film challenge

Main Characters
Shanice (Molly Noble) - Lead gang member
Crystal (Aimee Lister) - 'dippy' gang member
Abbie (Paige Archer) - innocent gang member

Associate Characters
Drug Dealer (Jake Edwards)

Production/crew
Camera - Liam Meade
Writers - Molly Noble & Aimee Lister
Editing - All

Location
Station
Quiet tree-lined road
Abandoned building

Target Audience
16-25


TASK 1 - 48 hour film challenge

Our first task was the 48 hour film challenge, we were given 48 hours over 2 weeks to make a short between 5-10 minutes. We were all given a genre and we got Crime. We also got given a line to use which was, 'This town is becoming like a ghost town' 

We came up with the idea of having 2 teenage girls persuade a friend to drink and do drugs with them, the innocent girl OD's and the girls have to discard of the body. 

We thought this would be good to do because we can mainly focus on the editing and camera techniques rather than the characters acting skills so we adapted to what we had in the short space of time. 

LINK - 48 Hour Film Challenge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viP0gg2mYOs

"Radley House" - 10 week movie ideas

By Aimee Lister

"Radley House"


Group
Paige Archer
Aimee Lister
Liam Meade
Molly Noble
    - Palm Productions


Synopsis
A group of teenagers are left alone over the christmas holidays in a boarding school. 5 of them meet in the common room and think they are the only ones left. Most of them head back to their dorms leaving Hallie alone in the common room. The other students all hear a girls scream and the lights go out, they run back to the common room to find Hallie missing and discover another student; Simon. Simon insists he doesn't know where Hallie is but one of the boys becomes angry that he is not admitting her whereabouts and knocks him unconscious. The group look around at one another, realising they now have a mystery and murder on their hands.

Characters 
Hallie - new at the school, doesnt know many people (16)
Charlotte - Popular, friendly (18)
James - Popular, friendly, short tempered (18)
Max - Trouble, practical joker best friends with - (17)
Matt - Trouble, practical joker (17)

Location
Set in a large old fashioned boarding school on the moors of cornwall

Running time
20 minutes

Genre
Horror/Thriller/Mystery

Target audience
young adults ages 16-25 because of the age of the characters but reference to horror and death.