Representation of Gender in the Media

To further develop my characters, I decided to look at the traditional representation of different gender roles in the media, and also more modern ones and how they challenge these conventions. I did an Emaze presentation on this, it is embedded below:

Reflective Comment:
Doing some more character development was really useful leading up to the filming process, as it has meant I can understand my characters more and further visualise them. To make this presentation better, I could have included more examples of other films that meet the traditional conventions. However, I think that I covered the main areas needed and looked at how my film will either meet or challenge traditional conventions of gender roles.

Equipment List

Below is a slideshow of the short equipment list for my filming process:



Reflective Comment:
I don't have that much equipment needed for my filming process, but this post was still necessary for me. I think that I covered each area of the equipment well and talked about why I'm using it over another piece of equipment or software, and I also talked about how I'd found a way around the problem with a tripod for an iPhone.

Film Magazine Review In Depth Analysis

After analysing film posters in more depth, I decided that I should do the same with my other ancillary task of a film magazine review. To do this, I create a slideshow just as before, which is embedded below using Google Slides (please view in full screen)

Reflective Comment:
This post has helped me gain more of an understanding of what a film magazine review should include, and how they should be written. An obvious improvement of the slideshow would be to anaylse more magazine reviews, but each of them have different layouts with the same conventions, so I felt it would be more beneficial to anaylse one in depth with the text, and talk about how mine will be designed.

Film Poster In Depth Analysis

To ensure that I focus on my ancillary tasks as well as my main task, I decided to create a slideshow looking at film posters in more depth, and considering how mine will look. Embedded below is the slideshow I made through Google Slides.


Reflective Comment:
It is important for me to focus on my ancillary tasks as well as my main production, and so this post helped me move forward in the development of ideas for my film poster. It also helped make my blog more interactive by having a different form of software embedded on my blog. To make this slideshow better, I could have looked at even more films. However, I think that the 3 I picked were good as they are all of a different genre and anaylsing more films didn't seem necessary.

Props

For the filming of my production, there will be certain props that I need to help enhance the realism of my film. Below, I've embedded an Emaze I did that goes through each prop I will need and talks about what they represent and how they will help the overall quality of my film (please put full screen):

Reflective Comment:
Going through the props I need for my production brings me a step closer to being ready to film. Using Emaze to do this has also helped make my blog more interactive. I analysed the main props well and talked about semiotics and what they represent. To make this presentation better, I could have gone into more detail on the last slide about general props, but I think that it was best to just cover the main ones I need with the most detail.

Costumes

When it comes to filming, I need to make sure that I have sorted all of the necessary costumes that my actors will need to play their roles successfully. As you can see from my character development (here), I only have 3 main characters, and a side character of a police officer who appears briefly at the end. Below I have looked at these characters and talked about the costumes I will use for them with pictures for examples.

• Clare: Because of Clare's character, I won't really need any specific costumes for her, and will quite easily be able to use clothes that I or my actor already owns. To show her lack of effort with herself, I'm just going to dress her like a typical messy teenager in basic trousers and an over sized hoodie. This will show that she is not really bothered about what she looks like and has no intention to make any effort. The image below is from Google Images, and gives some sort of idea into how I imagine my main character looking. Black isn't the essential colour for her, I simply just want her to look quite messy and also quite confined. In relation to semiotics, that symbolises her as being trapped and sealing herself out from everyone else.

• Tom: This character's costume isn't too vital as he won't actually be seen much. However I want to portray him to be just like Clare and symbolise him as being trapped and attempting to shut everyone else out. I think that wearing hoodies as clothes helps show this because wearing your hood up over your face comes across as wanting to hide yourself from everyone else. As you can see from my script (here), Tom is seen during the film on his laptop with his hood up, so again like Clare I will dress this character in similar clothes. Having both of these characters wearing similar clothes and representing the same thing will help the audience understand why Clare trusts him so easily. An image below from Google helps me to visualise this character. Like Clare's costume, these clothes will be easy to get a hold of and won't require any new purchases.

• Clare's Mum: This character is seen at the start of the film sitting on her sofa, and at the end of the film when she is being told about Clare's death. For both of these scenes I plan to have her in the same clothes, simply to show her lack of effort with herself. I want the clothes she wears to be extremely scruffy and old, and to portray her as being a bad Mum as much as possible. I think that having her wearing something simple like a dressing gown will work, because it will show that when Clare gets home from school at '16:00', her Mum still hasn't made the effort to get dressed. The idea is that Clare's Mum really does not care about her, and hasn't really made any effort to bring her up, hence why she see's nothing wrong with meeting up with a stranger through the internet. The dressing gown below is an example of what she will wear.

• Police Officer: At the end of the film, a police officer will come to Clare's door to tell her Mum about her daughters death. To make this scene appear as realistic as possible, the costume here is very important. I'm going to get someone older to play this role, and will look more at this in my next post on actors. For the costume itself, I will dress the actor in a suit which they will hopefully already own. The suit will be black trousers, white shirt with a black tie. Then, in order to make it clear to the audience that this person is a policeman, I'm going to use a police officers hat. The general conventions of an officer telling a family member someone has died is the idea of them holding their hat in their whilst they knock on the door.  My Dad is a police officer, and is looking into getting hold of a hat I can use for this one scene. I'm awaiting permission. 
  

Reflective Comment:

The planning is coming along well for my production with the script, location, and costumes now all been thought about. I think I did this post very well and talked in depth about each character and what I want their costumes to represent. To make this better, I could have shown my actual actors in their costumes, but I haven't quite sorted this out yet. My next post will be about my actors, and will include profiles of who I've decided to use and why.

Script Writing

I've decided that the next logical step is to write a script for my film so when I talk to my actors about their roles I can go through exactly what they need to say. I was going to use a website called Celtx to do this, but I can't quite figure out how to use it for free instead of needing to pay. Because of this, I'm just going to write it onto a word document and print it out. The pictures of my printed script can be seen below. One of my other A Levels is Creative Writing, which means I am very familiar with the layout and structure of a script:

As you can see, in the script I included the speech that happens in the chat room, because without them the script may have been a bit bare. I think that the script itself is very good and goes through the film well, outlining what happens and what is said. I may come back to it and add parts or remove them when it comes to filming if some parts seem too short or too long.

Reflective Comment:

Completing the script was something I'm very glad I've gotten done. This may be a first draft or the finished version, depending on how the filming goes when using this script. I think its structured well and includes general conventions that a script would have (INT. EXT.). To make this script better, I could have included more details in the descriptive part, however I think the amount I included was good and covers the main areas of the film well and successfully. I think this script will be good for my production.

Possible Locations

My film plot can be seen by clicking here.
By familiarising yourself with this plot, you will probably realise that their aren't a large number of locations used. I'm going to use my house to show Clare on her laptop, which is easy for me. When it comes to her meeting up with Tom in the woods, I'm going to struggle with the lighting as I do want it to be dark to create a more sinister atmosphere, but due to the lack of lights in the actual woods it is probably going to be very hard to achieve and do well. Because of this, the location I may use could be an alleyway with a street lamp in it. This would mean the lighting would be easier because the actual area of filming would be lit up. I'm going to visit both of the locations in the dark and assess which one would be better for me. Below, you can see pictures of my the woods (Mousehold) which I obtained form Google Maps, and a possible alley way that I went out and took myself, in case the lighting in the woods fails.

I honestly think that I will end up adjusting my plot and using the alleyway as a meet up point for Clare and Tom instead of the woods, simply because the lighting will be much better and will make the quality of my film a lot better. The woods is probably a better idea in terms of location and would work in the daylight, however I think that a murder scene in the daylight wouldn't create the same fear and tension as it would in the dark. I will decide later, but the alley will most probably be used. Looking at the idea of semiotics (the study of signs and symbols that create meaning), I can relate the locations to this study. For example, the location of an alley way in the dark represents the idea of danger and lack of safety. Also, an alley way in the dark is usually seen as being quite scary and somewhere that people wouldn't want to go. This can also help build my character as it represent her naivety and the lack of understanding she has of danger due to the lack of care her Mum has shown her over here life.

Reflective Comment:
I've known in my head where the locations of my film were going for a while so it was good to get these ideas into a post. I think that having two possible locations for the murder scene of my film is actually a good thing because it gives me the variety and freedom of choice to decide which one works better in terms of the atmosphere and lighting. To improve this task I could have actually gone out to take some photos of the woods in Mousehold. However, I couldn't see the point in making the journey when I can get the images through the internet, and I did go out to the alleyway and use my iPhone to take the pictures.

Film Magazine Review Initial Ideas

This post will look at some initial ideas for the film magazine review as the second ancillary task for my A2 course. Again, I don't want to spend too long on these tasks as they don't award me as many marks as the final production will. Having said this, I still want to ensure that I do these tasks to the best of my ability to earn maximum marks. Below are some film magazine reviews I've looked at online, and like the poster I have listed some of the typical conventions from the reviews.

To find these posters I also went onto Google images and typed 'film magazine review', and above is the screenshot of the first pictures. They are of a mix of different genres, because I just want to start by looking at the typical conventions of the reviews:

• Either a big picture or lots of little ones from the film are shown either around the writing or in the middle of the page.
• The reviews typically are read across two A4 pages (A3 landscape).
• There are usually quotes either from the film, actors or directors.
• Title of the film in a large bold font to stand out.

Looking at the conventions has allowed me to understand how I should lay out my film magazine review. I plan to follow these conventions when making mine, but adapting it to suit my type of film. For example, because I'm aiming my production at a modern younger audience, I could include a lot of website addresses or social media links for people to follow as the younger generation will be more heavily reliant on technology and the use of social media in their day to day life.

Reflective Comment:
Like the initial ideas for the poster, this was a good starting point for the magazine review. Again, this post appears brief and without in depth detail, but like the poster it was just intended to be a base starting point to talk about the starting research I have done. I plan to analyse how a film magazine review is done in more detail soon and do some research into the best way to create my own.