Lauren's Media Studies

How is the future represented in the opening of the film 'Children of Men'? In a dystopian future world where everything seems to be falling apart except London, which “soldiers on”, Cuaron uses cinematographic style to place the audience directly into the filmic world of the characters. Ben Ogrodnik in ‘Senses of Cinema’ describes the camera work as “restless”. We see this in the opening as the handheld camera tracks the protagonist, Theo (Clive Owen) out of the coffee shop in a single long take, documentary-style. As the camera pans right to left from the doorway of the coffee shop, the viewer is given a clear sense of the mise-en-scene with the polluted London street. This unusual camerawork presents a self-conscious style of filmic storytelling, subverting the Classical Hollywood style, where the viewer is also a protagonist. As the camera circles Theo to reveal him pouring (presumably) alcohol into his coffee, people in 2027 seem to have lost hope due to infertility.

Here are the top 10 camera shots used in my genre: romantic crime.

Grace and I, recently just decided that we would change the genre of our film opening from a Romantic Comedy to a Romantic Crime, so i have decided to make a new mood board for it.

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck  Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck directed the film The Tourist. This movie revolves around crime, action and romance which fits perfectly with my genre - Romantic Crime. During the crime and the action parts of the film, the director used short, quick shots to show how fast time is moving, which i think would be appropriate to use in my film. Doug Liman Doug Liman directed the film, Mr and Mrs Smith in 2005 with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. This film although having a contiguenty error was filmed very cleverly as it was very action packed. Aswell as The Tourist, during Mr and Mrs Smith the action shots were filmed with wide, short and quick shots which really made the audience feel as if they were there. I can relate Doug's directing to my own film opening as i know i will need short shots during the action scenes and longer shots during the more romantic scenes.

The preliminary task was based on a person entering a room through a door, walking across the room, sitting down and exchanging brief conversation. I didn't find this task particularly hard as we were only using 3 camera techniques and the short exchange of conversation was easy to write. I used a video camera and placed it on a tripod so it would move easily around the room and i could alter the height. I used imovie for the first time to edit my task which was quite a challenge at first because i found it quite confusing but you learn as you go! I started planning this task by first researching the camera techniques i needed to include and how they would be used and then i created a storyboard outlining what the two people were going to do and say. I stuck to my plan as it was quite useful to prompt the actors and to know what angle i would be filming from. When Axil came in, he gave us some tips on how to make my preliminary task better, he said that you should film the dialog

On Thursday we visited the Warner Brothers studio as part of a Media, ICT, Buiness and Art trip. A range of years went on the trip which was very informative. Firstly, we had a lesson which was an hour long, this informed us on the marketing side of films which was very interesting, as you understood which marketing techniques worked the most in persuading the public to go and see a movie and how some of the techniques they do, we dont realise as it is so minor but so effective. After the lesson, we spent a couple of hours touring the studio which was amazing, you found out so many facts about the Harry Potter movies and how everything was structred and made. Once you visit the studio, you actually realise how much time and effort goes into making a movie e.g. the costumes, hair, make-up, storyboards. Towards the end of the tour, there was sections showing the sketches and paintings of things throughout the movies, this was so interesting as you get to see how much time we

Last Week, one of Mrs Williams friends Axil came into school to give us some tips on how to make our filming better. He is a professional cameraman so knows what he is doing in the filming world. He suggested that we should film everything in frame when doing a shot-reverse-shot so you can reverse it whilst editing. He also suggested that we should match angles more carefully, keeping the head sizes in the camera frame the same, so it doesn't look like its jumping around. While Axil was with us, we practised how to film a perfect preliminary task by keeping the camera frame the same and following the actors with the camera at a steady speed.

Heres a video put together by Grace and I, with photos and videos with gathered while touring the Harry Potter studios in Watford! Hope you enjoy x