Exam Practice 2: Representation of sexuality and race

In terms of mise-en-scene there are a lot of cables, computers and bright lights to emphasise on the laboratory setting. This creates a sci-fi feeling, which really helps to establish the genre. The low key lighting is especially helping to create the dark and mysterious atmosphere.

When listening to the music, there is a lot of non-diegetic music. The non-diegetic sounds of water dripping in the basement and the non-diegetic dramatic music, helps to establish the genre and creates a certain tension. Throughout the whole clip the music is very ominous and then all of a sudden when they stop kissing, it becomes even more dark.

When looking into cinematography, the beginning of the clip starts with a medium close-up, which gives us a real focus on her face and characteristics. 

When denoting her appearance, the audience would pick up on her black hair. Had she been portrayed as the stereotypical western beauty, she would have been blonde and would have worn more make-up such as a red lipstick. In this scene, she wears a light blush and a very neutral lipstick.

Furthermore, the framing in the first shot focuses on the character, but it also establishes the narrative enigma, because it doesn't suggest where the location is. During the dialogue, there is a shot reverse-shot which keeps returning back to the woman with the black hair. Through this, the audience knows that she is he main character and the central protagonist is established. According to Propp's character archetype theory, she would be the "Hero".

From that shot there is a reverse-shot to the antagonist, where we see her in a medium close-up.

Her lack of make-up, messy hair and color of the hair, her innocence is portrayed.

When our central protagonist sees, how the girl is suffering, she looks like she is in pain and the audience is being positioned to empathise with the central protagonist.

When looking into representation, we are positioned to identify ourselves with the central protagonist, because the shot keeps going back to her. Due to the fact that our central protagonist is empathising and feeling sorry for the antagonist, the audience automatically does the same.
There is a stereotype created of the girl with the lighter hair as the female victim. There is also created a counter-type for the central protagonist, because she is helping the girl. In other films, helping a female would usually be done by a male actor. It has become normative in society and has become a stereotype that men are strong and are always the ones who help a female in need of help.

This medium two-shot below is very tightly framed, leaving no speace between the two character. This shot is connoting that there is a bond between the two characters.

The media language chosen of this slight high angle and the medium two-shot, signifies that they are both vulnerable and that they are both in danger.

During this small clip, there are soft and slow piano tunes. This has connotations of sadness and it really anchors the relationship between the two characters.

It can be interpreted to be romantic and it fits well with all the other signifiers that have been encoded into this text. 

This shot shows how the two characters are staring into eachothers eyes and grabbing eachother so hard around eachothers arms. This connotes that there is a romantic feeling between the two of them. 

The welsh accent used in this program, would be suited for a British or Welsh primary audience. This shows that this show could not be shown in America. Due to this, the show is not gaining a large amount of profit. Hence, it doesn't support the Gant Rule.
When the male character is observing the two girls in the basement and starts to record it as well, it could be denoted as male gaze features. The shot is cutting from the two girls to the male character.

"The male gaze is a concept coined by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey. It refers to the way visual arts are structured around a masculine viewer. It describes the tendency in visual culture to depict the world and women from a masculine point of view and in terms of men's attitudes."

When the central protagonist is seen behind the glass, there is a use of intertextuality, because it is similar to a scene in "The Silence of the Lambs" from 1991 by Jonathan Demme.

This intertextuality, is used to appeal to the secondary target audience, which is parents and older people, because they might have seen the movie. The younger audience on the other hand, might not understand the reference.  



Stuart Hall, stated that semiotics had a lot of limitations as it was assumed that all of the reading resided to the only in the text. He argued that meaning resides in the audience as well and that the different people react to different things in different ways. 

When looking into semiotics and it's syntatic level, the dominant elements on screen are the 2 girls. Since, the antagonist keeps pushing her away, the overall effects is that we begin to feel sorry for our central protagonist. 

When just focusing on the representational level, we can see that our central protagonist has an interest in women and has feelings for the antagonist, alien. She is the one that keeps wanting to kiss her, despite the fact that the antagonist keeps pushing her away. This denotes, that she has a strong interest in her, because she doesn't stop immediately. In the scene that I analysed from 1:30 to 2:00 min, the camera is nearly always creating a medium close-up or close-up, so that the audience can clearly see the emotions of both of them. 

The editing in this clip is continuity editing, which is very linear. There are no jump-cuts in the scene.

Evidence of Directing

This is some evidence of directing that I put together to show how I tried to direct Bronwen and Jonathan so that their actions would look natural and good on screen.

Editing - Final Cut Pro X

In terms of editing we used Final Cut Pro for the creation of our film opening.

We used Final Cut Pro X, because it offers a lot of different opportunities and varieties in terms of editing. With the use of Final Cut, we were able to adjust the lighting and the look in our film opening. Furthermore, we will be creating our title sequence with Final Cut, because it has very simple controls that allows us to generate studio quality titles. 

The timeline that you can see on the bottom, offers you a flexible way to edit. 

Clips automatically move out of the way to avoid clip collisions. Moreover, it is very clear and simple to use Final Cut Pro, meaning that you always know what is happening as you work and you can always try out new ideas with all of the different varieties of effects and transitions.

Audience Feedback 2 - On Rough Cut 1

After finally completing a rough cut of our movie, Bronwen and I got some audience feedback from the Year 10 in our school. Most of the comments were how we could and should improve it in terms of sound effects, so that it would be more creepy and there would be more tension.
Others suggested that the girl should speak a bit louder, because you could barely hear the dialogue. Besides this criticism, the students liked our idea and thought that it definitely has potential.

Rough Cut 1

This is the first rough cut of our new idea.

BV: Audience Feedback 1

After collecting back the questionnaires that we handed out, I have collected the results:

We tried to ask mainly people from our target audience, however, we also asked people outside the target audience because they are also relevant as they fit into our secondary audience.

For question 4, I gave a very brief plot description and asked whether or not the film interested them and why/why not.

Overall, 9 out of 16 people liked our idea.

Positive points said about our film opening idea:

• An interesting idea, especially with the flash forwards.
• Goes with the convention of horror movies with the mask
• The anticipation to know who is under the mask
• Sounds like it could be fun
• Mysterious 
• Interesting 

Negative points:

• The bones hanging from the ceiling, no bones would be more effective as it leaves it more mysterious
• "Sounds a bit stereotypical and therefore doesn't really stand out from the others. I would see it but I wouldn't really promote it with other people because it sounds a bit generic."
• Too much is revealed in the first scene.
• Too gory for those who aren't that into horror.

Question 5 asked people to suggest a name for our movie. These are the titles that people came up with:

• Listen To Me
• The Killer's Room
• Lights Out
• The Kidnapper
• Creepy Hollow
• The Man in the Mask
• Trapped
• That Night
• Him 
• Torture
• Creepy Basement
• Masked
• Locked in with Death
• Trapped by Death
• The Cellar 
• The Butcher
• The Reflection
• Not My Face
• Mirrored Mask
• Trapped

We also found that 8 out of 13 people in our primary target audience (15-35) enjoy horror films. 

BV: Audience Feedback 1: Creating Questionnaire

I created a questionnaire that we handed out to 20 different people, to establish if our target audience liked our idea and to get some good ideas for a title.

Audience feedback questionnaire from Sophie2401

Screenplay - Version 3

Below you can see the screenplay that we did after we changed our idea for the 2nd time. This is the final screenplay which is the one that we will be using, when we are filming.

Screenplay not my face from Sophie2401

BV: Call Sheet 1

I created a table consisting of the frame, what was in it, and the mise-en-scene, which relates to the storyboard, I tried to make it as detailed as possible in order to make it more clear what was in each scene.

Frame	Shot and movement	Sound	Costume	Props
1	Establishing shot, = sense of location.	Very girly song, stereotype of teenage girls e.g. One Direction
2	Over the shoulder shot. Main character is in it, but can’t see her face. Follows the character as she walks forwards.	Non-diegetic music continues.
3	Long shot of character going up escalators. Camera is still.	Music continues.	The top half of her body can be seen, she is wearing a white dress. This represents her innocence.	She’s holding her phone, and has a black handbag
4	Rat’s eye view of her shoes on escalator. Camera is still.	Music continues, diegetic sound of escalators.	She is wearing black converse.
5	Over the shoulder of her using a photo printing machine. Camera is still.	Music continues. Sounds of her operating the machine.	Her nails are painted pink. This reflects her girly nature.	The printing machine is already there, in a shopping centre.
6	Close up of her hand, holding a photo. The camera cuts closer in on the photo, where a guy in the background can be seen.	Music continues.	There are 4 friends in the photo, linking arms, smiling, wearing dresses.  The person in the background is wearing black, and a balaclava.	Would need the dresses, also guy in background is holding binoculars.
7	Close up on her face. She looks nervous, eyes darting around. Camera is still.	As she pulls out her earphones, the happy music stops, and there is dead, eerie silence.		White earphones, classical and also emphasizes her innocence.
8	Long shot. She begins running.  Camera moves with her.	Very quiet, dramatic music begins, drums.	We see her costume in full, white dress and black converse.
9	Long shot, her walking through turning doors. Camera is still. She is going into the underground car park which is dark and dramatic. Low key lighting.	Dramatic music continues to build up, getting slightly louder and more insistent, building tension.
10	Character bends down, out of breath, looks up and looks around. The dark background looks intimidating.	Music gets much louder and more dramatic.
11	Cut to a medium close up of her face. A figure appears behind her, and pulls a sack over her head. A handheld camera is used to reflect her unsteady state of mind.	Music get the most dramatic and as the sack is pulled over her head it stops suddenly, loud and scary.	The character is flushed from running, which can be achieved through blush. She could also be sweating, from fear/ exertion, through some water on her forehead.
12	Black screen.	Voice of the character talking about her kidnapping, “It’s been 9 months.”
13	Long shot of character slumped in a chair. Looks upset. No camera movement. Opposite her is a psychiatrist, sitting straight in contrast.	They are talking about the character being kidnapped and tortured.	The main character is wearing grey joggers and a black hoodie.  She is wearing no makeup although a light foundation would be used to make her pale, and bags under her eyes – brown eyeshadow.	We would need the location of the psychiatrist room or a normal room that we could make look like one.
14	Over the shoulder shot,   Camera is still. Psychiatrist’s shoulder, main character can be seen.	Some very gentle but dramatic music in the background.  Diegetic sound of them speaking to each other.	Looks sad and upset, depressed.	Painting on the wall, modern art, geometric shapes.
15	Over the shoulder shot,   Camera is still. Main character’s shoulder. Psychiatrist can be seen.		Psychiatrist wearing long earrings and perhaps some glasses. Dressed in white = connotations of medical work/ contrast to main character.	There is binary opposition between these two characters, Psychiatrist look healthy and happy. Glasses and earrings = props.
16	Close up of main character’s face. No camera movement.	The music becomes more urgent and dramatic, the psychiatrist’s voice fades out/becomes distorted = reflection of her fear/discomfort.	Again, character is dressed in black dark grey= binary opposition to her formal self, innocent, wearing white and also to the psychiatrist.	Makeup/ face paint to make her look tired and upset.
17	Repeated flashbacks. Flashing between past and present. Close up of the girl tied up, very harsh, flashing lighting.	Uncomfortable high pitched noise, music is distorted and confusing=her mind set.	She is wearing a grey t-shirt. There is blood on it. She has a lot of cuts and bruises on her face, a black eye. Sweating a lot.	She has a gag around her mouth.
18	Long shot, main character stands up and sprints out of the room.	The music and high pitched noise have reached the peak.	She is wearing the same converse.
19	Extreme close up on the door handle.
20	Mid shot, door slams, title appears in a red font.