Sunday, 4 November 2012

What's Wrong With The British Film Industry?

In comparison to other locations, such as Hollywood, it can be argued that the British film industry is lacking in something, that it isn't as successful as some others. But it is unlikely to be due to lack of talent, as Britain have some of the finest technicians in the world who are very much wanted by Hollywood, even though they could make even more cost savings by shooting in Poland, or Romania, but still choose Britain. It can’t be down to a lack of facilities, as we have the biggest sound stages and all of the latest technology. It can’t be down to a lack of acting talent either, as today there are many more British actors working in America than there are Americans working in Britain compared to years ago. It isn't just the quality of British films being produced that is low - it's the quantity too. The number of films being made in Britain has fallen to the lowest level since at least 2003, with those that are being made on much lower budgets. On the consumer side, the British watch more films across more platforms than ever before, with record receipts of £988m at the box office. But the production side is a grim picture. The number of films made was down from 87 in 2009 to 79 in 2010. Total films made in Britain, including Hollywood productions and co-productions, fell from 150 to 128 last year. However many people hold a different opinion on the state of the British film industry as it is, for example Lord Smith: “British film is going through a golden period.  A run of British-made and British-based movies has been taking audiences around the world by storm.  But we cannot be complacent – this review highlights the things that the BFI, Government and industry can do to ensure that we continue to build on recent successes. British film is in prime position to make a major contribution to the growth of the UK’s economy, to the development of attractive and fulfilling careers for young people and to the creation of job opportunities across the country.” Like Lord Smith, some people see the British film industry as a huge boost to the economy and believe that when they want they can produce the best movies. The British film industry not only helps the economy out with money, it also supports over 35,000 jobs. Also in respond to the people who say Britain does not produce enough movies, last year independent British films took their largest market share in a decade, which illustrates that Britain does encourage people to produce/make movies and this has made an impact. The box office itself also made over £1 billion for the first time, even though Britain doesn’t produce as many films as America, we still contribute to watching them and financially helping the market. Britain also has the highest amount of cinemas in comparison to Europe, this also proves that we have a lot of people in the country that enjoy and contribute to the film industry, and obviously a large amount of money is gained from the public consuming films in this way. The British film industry has also invested £160 million in movies and gained  £800 million, in other words every £1 we have invested we have got £5 in return. The films produced in Britain have won over 300 awards worldwide and have also won some of the most prestigious awards such as the Oscars and BAFTAs. Britain have produced many successful films in the past such as Trainspotting, which created a lot of gain for the British film industry. If the Edinburgh tourist board didn’t have reason to thank the director of Trainspotting, Danny Boyle, for the adaption of Irvine Welsh’s novel of junkie street life, the British film industry and a million student walls and CD players certainly did.Also some of the more recent and most successful UK independent films were The King's Speech, grossing £46m in the UK, and The Inbetweeners Movie, grossing £45m. They also went to the top of the charts of the top 20 independent films since 1989, coming in above Slumdog Millionaire and Four Weddings and a Funeral.
In my opinion, I believe the British film industry doesn't lack talent or quality, but does lack the quantity that we need to be even more celebrated and create even more success.

Editing


Not all of the filmmaking is to do with in front or behind the camera; in fact the editing process is crucial for a film to be finished well, as it helps enhance mood, emotion and character. Editing involves combining the right shots into sequences, and combining the sequences into the finished film.
Editor’s tasks to finish a film include:
  • Selecting and rejecting (if it’s not good enough) footage by the director
  • Organising various shots into the finished film
  • Co-ordinating one shot and a following to produce a moving narrative

The editor starts by looking at the various individual shots available to create a particular scene and they then use the script for the scene as a guide, and decide which shots would be best to create it. Sometimes a whole scene may be made up of just one shot if it is of correct length. Scenes are put together to create a sequence, a group of scenes set around a section of the narrative, and sequences are then put together to give a finished film.

Continuity editing
Most films and other moving images that we watch conform to this method of editing. Editing is hardly noticed by the audience, as we accept what is happening on screen if it follows the rules that we have learnt from watching other films.
These are some common features of continuity editing:
  • ·         The establishing shot is typically used at the beginning of a film or sequence to ensure that the audience knows where and when the action takes place. This could involve the outside of a building, a landscape or a city skyline. This shot often then changes to the inside of a building that we can assume for example is the inside of the building that we saw in the establishing shot.
  • ·         Shot reverse shot is commonly used during conversation, so that the audience can see how both people in the conversation respond and deliver pieces of information.
  • ·         180 degree rule is the basic rule that ensures that the audience can understand the scene in terms of where things are within the location that the scene is being filmed. This rule can be deliberately broken by the editor to create confusion and disorientation amongst the film.

Cut
Film editors can connect one scene to another in several ways, including a straight cut, fade out, dissolve, wipe cut or jump cut.
These all affect the pace and mood of a scene. The three things that an editor will take into consideration when working on a scene are the quality of the shot, cinematic space and cinematic time. 
The quality of the shot includes what the shot actually contains, what’s happening in the shot, how has the shot been filmed and how does this relate to what is going on in the shot? 
The cinematic space refers to where the action takes place, for example in establishing shots we are shown the location of the scene in the first shot. What are the people doing within the space and what are we, as an audience, supposed to focus on? 
The cinematic time refers to the time a sequence takes to play on screen – compressed or extended.

To shrink time we can create a series of fast paced cuts to illustrate what is happening a lot quicker. For example, we see a character get in a car in one location and get out at another, so we can assume that a journey has taken place rather than showing the whole thing. 
To expand time we add additional details, e.g. a scene of someone sitting and waiting can be made longer by editing together cuts of the characters eyes, hands, and other body parts to portray their impatience, to create tension.

Editing sets the rhythm or pace of a scene. This could be due to either the music in the background or the mood created by the pace that a scene is edited. To build tension in a scene you could cut from one shot to the next very quickly. However in a relaxed scene shots will be cut at a much slower pace.

BBC News - Film Industry Boost to UK Economy

Film tax relief brings in at least £12 for every £1 spent on it, according to the British Film Commission, with three new creative tax reliefs planned for 2013.
The film industry is worth an estimated £1.6bn to Britain's GDP and employs about 44,000 people.
The BBC's Steph McGovern visited a motion capture studio to find out how the magic happens.
She was joined by Sir William Sargent, chief executive of visual effects company Framestore, and Samantha Perahia of the British Film Commission.

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Hotel Babylon Clip

Race/Class
  • Other races: audience empathises for the, as they are discriminated against
  • White people are clearly the dominant race
  • High angle: looks down upon immigrants shows authority/superior person
  • Eye level: the audience sees eye to eye with the white people
  • All of the immigrants are put into one very small room like they are insignificant
Sound
  • Non-diegetic sound builds tension
  • Music throughout the whole clip
  • Diegetic: the shouting of the workers highlights their worry
  • Knock on door then a long pause- creates tension for the audience
  • Music is much slower at the end of the clip to portray emotion: sadness because a family member has been lost
  • Music throughout reflects how you are supposed to be feeling
Mise-en-Scene
  • Where the immigration workers lockers are situated looks very dirty/scruffy as if they arent looked after.
  • Immigrants costumes contrast with those of a higher class
    High class: suits, royal blues, very smart etc.
    Immigrants: Ratty overalls
  • Owner/manager of hotel is wearing a very smart/posh suit to emphasise her role
  • Those working for the immigration patrol were wearing blazers to emphasise their higher role and higher class
  • Police uniform: well known, authority, looked up too
Camera
  • Panning shots
  • Low angle when woman is on the floor for sympathy
  • Pan up from hoover
  • Tracking Shots
  • Zoom into receptionist, we know the focus is on her
Editing
  • Sharp, short cuts from each cut
  • Constant change of angle

Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Paranormal Activity 4 Review

A battle between horror conventions and innovations has been steadily brewing over the course of the "Paranormal Activity" franchise, and in the fourth film, the conventional finally wins. Less reliant on slow-burn suspense and larded with fake-out jump scares, this is the first sequel in the series that fails to advance the overall mythology in any meaningful way. Whether the faster pace and less inventive thrills will matter to hardcore fans, there's little indication the "Paranormal" brand has worn out its commercial appeal just yet. B.O. should be positively frightful (in a good way) through the Halloween season.
Small children chatting with spirits. A virginal teenage protagonist fending off her horny boyfriend. Creepy neighbors dabbling in the occult. Auds have seen it all before, which would be less of a concern if this "Paranormal" followed in its predecessors' footsteps and found fresh ways to spin familiar tropes. Instead, directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman and screenwriter Christopher Landon (all returning from "Paranormal Activity 3") seem to be suffering from creative malaise, settling for a few too many shots of doors ominously opening on their own, and multiple instances of the family cat scampering past the camera to deliver a sudden jolt. "Paranormal Activity 3" circled back to the past to explore the childhood of the first two movies' sibling protagonists, Katie and Kristi. The fourth film picks up five years after the end of part two, when Katie disappeared into the night with her infant nephew, Hunter, after murdering her sister. Using their whereabouts as a lingering question, the film introduces two 6-year-old boys. Robbie (Brady Allen), a loner with a proclivity for menacing asides, lives across the street from Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp), a rambunctious lad with a lovely teenage sister, Alex (Kathryn Newton), and two stable parents, Doug (Stephen Dunham) and Holly (Alexondra Lee). A mysterious accident at Robbie's house forces the neighbors to become his temporary caretakers; Alex is the only one who notices all the unsettling things that coincide with Robbie's arrival. Even before Alex and her wisecracking b.f., Ben (Matt Shively), rig the home with cameras to provide the series' trademark nighttime video recording, the film plays fast and loose with the requisite found-footage style. Viewers are rarely clued in as to what's being used to film the action or why it's being recorded at all, other than what seems like Alex's obsessive need to carry around her computer and engage in frequent videochats with Ben. Eventually, the creepy notion emerges that various webcams in the house are permanently recording, whether their users know it or not, but the filmmakers never really follow through on the paranoid potential inherent in such an invasion of privacy. The pic's sole visual novelty comes from the use of the Xbox Kinect gaming accessory, which blankets the family living room with tiny green projection dots, visible only when captured by an infrared camera. The gimmick adds an otherworldly quality to select nighttime sequences, while doubling as a quirky bit of product placement. At least it's more original than the multitude of setpieces blurring the line between ripoff and homage in the pic's use of a Big Wheel tricycle ("The Shining"), levitating body ("The Exorcist") and bathtub ("A Nightmare on Elm Street"). Performances are fairly routine for the genre, though young leading lady Newton summons agreeable echoes of Dakota Fanning and Evan Rachel Wood. Tech credits are also in line with expectations, but the creeping intrusion of flashy visual effects and prosthetic makeup into what started as a low-tech series may not be to everyone's liking. Gregory Plotkin's editing further violates unwritten franchise rules by breaking up the "found footage" with jarring cuts, occasionally utilized for quick shocks. The film is dedicated to the memory of Dunham, who died of a heart attack last month. In addition to playing his onscreen wife here, Lee was Dunham's spouse offscreen as well.