low budget film vs high budget on Prezi

prelim task - supernatrual thriller film idea

Preliminary Task on Prezi

important shots from the film...

Barthes Narrative

Roland Barthes

denotation and connotation

denotation tends to be described as the definition. 'literal', 'obvious' and 'common-sense' meaning of a sign. the term 'connotation' is used to refer to socio-cultural and 'personal' associations (ideological, emotional etc.) of the sign. these are typically related to the interpreters class, age, gender, ethnicity and so on. signs are more 'polysemic' - more open to interpretation - in their connotations than their denotations.

in the photographic message' (1961) and 'the rhetoric of the image' (1964), Barthes argued that in photography connotation can be distinguished from denotation as Fiske puts it 'denotation' is what photographed connotation is how it is photographed

related to connotation is what Roland Barthes refers to as myth. we usually associate myths with classical fables and the exploits of gods and heroes. but for bathes myths were the dominant ideologies of our time

like metaphors, myths help us to make sense of our experiences within a culture. they express and serve to organize shared ways of conceptualizing something within a culture. their function is to naturalize the cultural - in other words to make dominant cultural and historical values, attitudes and beliefs  seem entirely 'natural' or 'normal' self-evident, timeless, obvious 'common-sense' - and this objective and 'true' reflections of 'the way things are'

it is possible to argue that all media representations relate to broader cultural myths and belief systems.

Uses and gratification theory

uses and gratification theory
the theory is that you would use the media to gratify how you feel and what kind of mood you are in
for example

 if i was happy i would watch my favourite film that i would know wouldnt put me in a bad mood
personally i would watch: arthur (modern version) becuase although it has sad parts in it, it still has a good ending and makes you smile after you watch also aall the little jokes put in makes you laugh and is a pleasure

if i was sad then i would watch a sad film for example; my girl becuase it still is intresting but is also very sad so would match the mood you were in and if the characters were in a similar situation you were at the time then you would be able to realte to the characters and understand more what the writers and directors intentions were in the film.

if i was bored then i would watch a romcom like: when harry met sally or chocolat becuase these are the genre type of films that i enjoy watching the most and this kind of contredicts the theory becuase if i was in a bored mood then i wouldnt watch a boring film becuase i would want something that would interest me and what i would want to watch.

Seven analysis

seven opening sequence

• Dark and mysterious
• All close up, no mid or long shots used throughout the sequence
• No settings or characters introduced
• Just someone fingers doing detailed tasks
• Low key lighting
• Jumpy, twitchy animations with the writing, links to audience and how they might react to the film
• Non-diagetic creepy tension building music
• Only dialogue is in the song right at the end which is ‘you bring me close to god’
• All big celebrities main roles are put first in the sequence and have their own still image where as less important people have 2-3 people on the still image and are there for a shorter period of time
• All dull colors
• Apart from flashes of red – using the red subconsciously makes the viewer think danger,blood,death
• Dirty hands, dirt under the nails showing he has been working for a long time
• Shows all intricate details
• Doesn’t really give away any of the story of the line but still interests you

Still image analysis

our genre was a supernatraul thriller with a strong female role

we created the figure by dressing one of our group memebers in black and simply putting black cloth over their face, the kind of door they stood behind gave it the blurred effect, by having the figure in black it rpresents dark and evil so straight away the audiance would know tha something isnt right.The image shows a young school girl doing some work after school but a dark mysterious figure is watching her through the door this gives a sense of danger by her being oblivious of the figure behind her this is why we had her just focusing on her work as if she was looking into the camera it would have th effect that it wasnt just her and the figure that someone else would be looking at the figure so they would know what was going which isnt the effect we wanted it to have as it then changes what we wanted as the storyline.We used the room that we did as it helped to add to the setting as it gave the figure the blurred effect and the posters around by the door so you know that its in a school enviroment.

if i had to choose out of the two for which one was the stonger image i would choose the close up version as it is more focused on the figure behind the door and is more obvious and although you cant see what shes doing it isnt realy relevent to the image and is still obvious where its set as it dosnt look anything like an office or apartment still

to make it better we could maybe have it in a better setting like having a darker key lighting and her sitting just in lamp light instead of a full room lit as it would add to the scariness of it and would have more recognition for the audiance that she was alone.