Unit 26: Film Studies - Task 1 - Auteur Theory & Genre Theory

Auteur Theory

Auteur theory is the theory that, despite everyone involved in the film making process, it is the Director that mostly leaves their mark on the final product. This is because it's the Director's overall vision which is being created. Because Directors leave their mark, you can often see running themes throughout their work.

A very good but obvious example of a Directors specific style is Wes Anderson. Anderson is known for his stylistic choices more than most directors and his style is much more obvious to spot than others too.

In the follow clip from Wes Anderson's film 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' we see several of the Director's trademarks such as symmetrical framing and tracking shots.

The shot where Gustav and Zero are stood outside of the Hotel perfectly demonstrates Anderson's use of symmetry in his films. You can see the doorman is dead on centre of frame and on either side of the shot there are identical windows with identical plants seen inside. He also frames the shot so everything is as perfectly in line as it possibly can be, also seen clearly in the picture below.

This kind of symmetry and framing is seen throughout Anderson's films too:

In this shot from 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' we once again have a character centre frame with symmetrical surroundings. While not perfectly symmetrical or even as symmetrical as the previous shot there is still a strong use; The fly trap light is in the middle of the frame while either side of the shot in the top corners there are 2 identical lights as if reflected.

This shot too contains symmetry but less obvious than the others. This time it isn't the background containing it but the subjects of the scene. The smaller actor has purposefully been put in the middle of the two taller actors for the effect.

Another example of the Auteur theory that people might use is Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino is, like Wes Anderson, a Director who's name is very valued on their films. Rather than identifying a film as a genre, many film audiences just identify his films as 'Tarantino movies'. He is as much of a draw to the film as the actors are.

Tarantino demonstrates Auteur theory slightly differently to Anderson. Anderson's camera angles and techniques are what make him stand out while Tarantino uses lots over gore and over the top violence.

However, Tarantino films can be identified by their camera angles too. He has a recurring theme of using a similar shot in all of his work. The shot I'm talking about is the 'trunk shot':

Tarantino also tends to intertwine his films, having them all take part in the same continuity (except for Kill Bill). He does this by making links such as Vincent in Pulp Fiction is the brother of Vic in Reservoir Dogs.

Genre Theory

Genre relates to a range of media forms. However, genre in film is the style or category the film fits into. There are all kinds of genres such as drama, horror, comedy, romance, sci-fi etc. And sometimes films fall into more than one category, creating a genre like Rom-com. There are also all kinds of sub-genres, for example; super heroes, sports, fantasy or disaster.

Genre can relate the 3 'phases' in the film industry. For producers the genre can be used as the template for the film before it is made. Distributors use the genre of a film to figure out who the best audience is and how they should market and advertise the film. And, finally, as the audience, a film genre helps us label different films whether we would enjoy them or not, meaning we can filter films by our individual tastes.

Over time genres become classics because of their influence over all aspects of cinema. These genres have been tried and tested over a long period of time allowing them to be 'perfected' or at least for the film makers to completely understand what is needed from a film or script for it to fit into the chosen genre.

Genre has many rules or conventions it needs to follow. Having these rules makes a kind of promise between the distributor and the audience because they are knowing (vaguely) what to expect.

One of these conventions can be symbolic, for example using the colour red in a horror movie fits because it represents danger to the audience. You could also use green to represent a sci-fi movie. A good example of colour used in film is in Edgar Wright's 'Cornetto trilogy'. The 3 films have different themes and a colour corresponding to each of them.

Another is technical. Like how in different genres of movies the use of shot types, lighting etc. will be different as certain technical conventions fit with some genres more than they do with others. For example, fast paced 'shaky cam' style that might be used in action movies for a fight scene almost definitely wouldn't be seen in a rom-com.

The third convention is historical. This is about setting the scene correctly for the film to fit into the right time period and make sense to the audience. So, if the film was set in the middle ages everything from the props to what the actors were doing would have to make sense in that period.

Unit 22: Single Camera Techniques - Task 2 - Evaluation

Throughout the Single Camera Techniques unit I worked on 3 different short films. On 'No Good Deed Done' I was the Director and I was Director of Photography for both 'Exposure' and 'The Incident'.

Being a Director was challenging as it was a role I hadn't been in before other than making the Christmas adverts however they were very short pieces and only a few hours worth of shooting. Being Director meant I was in charge of the entire production. I would organise rehearsals and shooting times and I would have to sort out locations and other similar things. Other than our first shoot, which was badly organised and ended up overlapping with an 'Exposure' shoot, I personally feel like I did a good job, making sure all of the previously mentioned things were sorted well. I also think I did a fairly good job Directing the actors and crew, getting what I wanted from them. I feel that starring in the film also (due to a lack of actors) made directing more difficult and I wouldn't want to do the same again. Kane was my Director of Photography and I enjoyed working with him very much as he has a good understanding of the camera and managed to easily capture each shot I asked for with no issues. There wasn't a lot of co-operating or discussion about the shots, he just tended to follow instruction for the most part which was helpful in getting the shoot done. Becca was on Sound and she did a good job too. The sound captured wasn't great in the end but that was no fault of hers as we were in a noisy location so she did well working with what we had. Chloe was the AD and Rhys was the Production manager their roles both involved filling in paper work for example Chloe would get signatures for the location forms. Chloe helped keep the whole production organised and was very helpful in general. As a whole, I feel everyone working on the production of the film worked well together.

As for being Director of Photography, this was a role I'd had more experience in than directing, so I was more comfortable. I felt I did a much better job as DoP on both Exposure and The Incident. On The Incident I feel like I filled the role well doing everything I was required to do and working fluently with the rest of the team, especially Taylor, the director, as I think we have a good working relationship already from previously working together on the Music Video. We worked quite closely as we would discuss shots and create shot lists together before filming began. Having written the script for the short film and already having ideas for the visuals meant we could share ideas and come to a decision about what shots would be best. Taylor, being the Director, was in charge of the whole shoot and I think he did a great job controlling and organising the entire thing which, considering it was a party scene so we had a large amount of extras, is more difficult than controlling a normal shoot. Being on camera, I also worked closely with Jess who was on Sound. I was constantly working with her for the entire shoot as we had to co-operate making sure the sound was good for every scene, in some cases this took a lot of working together to avoid a lot of background noise and hissing. Also, as DoP i was in charge of lighting the scene and I think I also did a very good job of this. More so in the bedroom scene as I think I was quite creative with the lighting, coming up with solutions to light low light areas. As for the party scene, there are a few times when the shadow of the camera was in shot. Some of these I did not notice and some I did and we re-shot. The cause of the shadows was the use of normal house lighting and not using professional film lighting.

I was also DoP on 'Exposure', the film Kane was directing, I had a very similar experience as DoP on this film as I did when doing the same job on 'The Incident' however for this film there was less discussion about shots. I would maybe suggest a slightly different angle sometimes but more just setting up what Kane asked for. In a few scenes the camera can be seen in a reflection. Both me and Kane checked these shots before recording and still didn't notice. This is something to learn from and make sure we 100% check that there is no chance the camera could be seen in a reflection by positioning the camera correctly. Kane was very good as the Director, giving good instruction to everyone on set and letting them know exactly what he wanted which led to some very good scenes being filmed.

For 'No Good Deed Done' I was also in charge of the post production. I've actually really struggled with the editing of this short film, more so than other projects I've worked on. It's difficult because once all the footage we'd captured was put together, it didn't fit together as well as I'd hoped in some places, mainly because of the audio issues. The audio has unwanted music in the background and is not only distracting from what is happening but also makes cutting clips and putting clips together incredibly hard because the music noticeably changes. Despite the issues, certain parts of the film have turned out really well and look good when put together as full scenes.

Unit 22: Single Camera Techniques - Task 3 - Demonstrating Your Knowledge Of Single Camera Techniques

Unit 22: Single Camera Techniques - Working Blog

9/3/16

Today was first filming day for both 'No Good Deed Done' & 'Exposure'. To start with, we began filming 'Exposure' on which I was the DoP. For the first shoot, it all went well. Aside from some waiting around due to make up and a small schedule clash, the shoot was very organised and went smoothly.

As I mentioned before, there was a schedule clash. This was because I had scheduled my filming to start before Kane had finished on his. Luckily this was sorted quickly and I was allowed to leave to go and sort out my film. We also shared actors too, so the scenes with those actors were shot first so they would also be able to leave for make up.

My filming took place in the bathroom due to a fight scene in that location. We'd had the room closed off for us. By the time we began to film it was 8pm, meaning we only had an hour to shoot so I knew we wouldn't get everything. This meant I had to decide what scenes would be best to shoot at the time. As I had the bloodied face make up on, we shot the scenes that was required for first so I could then take it off and film the rest. These shots we're actually very difficult to get right so because of this we ended up spending most of the hour we had doing so, which wasn't good. We got some more shots before realising there wasn't much more time so we had to wrap up.

The shoot didn't go as well as I had hoped and we got even less footage than expected however what we did get was very good. We will have to get a lot of pick ups done for this scene.

14/3/16

Today we went to Lucia's in Yarm to film the diner/restaurant scene. We all met at college and headed over in a mini bus. On the way I realised I had forgot a prop for one of the scenes meaning we couldn't film it and it would have to be done in pickups (assuming the restaurant would let us film again). They had allowed us to film from 3pm however we arrived at 4pm meaning we didn't have as long. We set up as quick as possible and began filming. We managed to get the entire 1st scene done, a solid 5 minutes of the film, plus some other shots. I think this was a good day of filming and we got as much done as we could before the restaurant got too busy and loud.

15/3/16

Today was the filming of the party scene for 'The Incident'. The filming was taking place at my house on the evening. The crew arrived at my house earlier than the actors so we could set everything up. I was DoP on this day so I was in charge of camera and lighting. This was a very long shoot but we managed to get nearly every shot we needed (the shot of Reece on the floor was the only shot we didn't get).

16/3/16


Today we filmed the scene in Joe's room from 'The Incident'. We used Taylor's room at his house as the location of this scene. Once again I was DoP. This time around there was a lot of lighting involved which had to be just right. I think I made good use of lighting in the scene to give it a professional look. The only actor in the shoot on this day was Dylan meaning it was a very simple shoot and Dylan was very easy to work with. We managed to get all the footage we wanted even filming extra shots which were not originally planned.

17/3/16


The filming on this day was for 'Exposure', Kane's film. We were filming at Pizza Express who were kind enough to let us film inside the restaurant. This was a great shoot to work on as everything was very simple and everyone worked well.

18/3/16

Today we filmed more scenes for 'The Incident'. In this scene we filmed at the college as in the film, for this scene, the characters are in college. This was a short scene to film however it took longer than expected since we had to make sure there was nothing unwanted in the background. There was only a few shots to film in total. Once again the actors were very easy to work with and extras also were good. They were very patient as they were doing very little.

22/3/16

This shoot day took place in the pick up week. First we shot pick up scenes for 'Exposure'. All this filming took place in SRC Two. There was a lot of waiting around for some actors due to them not being needed until later on but as a whole the day went really well and everything was finished.

After we finished filming on 'Exposure' we went to do the pick ups for the bathroom scene for 'No Good Deed Done'. We re shot most of what we got last time for continuity purposes and managed to get the rest of the footage we didnt get last time, finishing the scene.

23/3/16

On the 2nd and last day of pick ups we went back to Lucias to film the rest of the diner scene for 'No Good Deed Done'. We started filming at 3, earlier than last time, and actually covered everything in good time meaning we finished earlier than previously expected. Overall this was a good productive day of filming.

Unit 1: Pre-production Techniques for the Creative Media Industries - Task 1 - Part 2

FutureLearn Blog:

Week 1:

The first week of the course started with an introduction, letting you know how the course will work, what you will be learning about and what you can take from the course.

Next on the course, the site gave an overview of the different stages and aspects of pre-production in Film & TV. It went into detail in regards to what happens on day to day shoots and even briefly going into what happens during post-production.

It asked you to discuss with other people taking the course your favourite films and the people behind them before going through pre-production step by step.


Week 2:

In the second week, the course took a more in depth look at aspects that were just briefly looked at in the first week such as the different departments and industry terms were also looked at.

There was also a more detailed look into the specific roles in each aspect of pre-production such as special effects supervisors and a production managers. There were actual people from each job role who explained what each job consisted of and spoke about films they had worked on in the past.

Also, in the second week, the course looked at pre production paperwork, showing examples of what has been used on film sets.

Week 3:

The third week delved into getting an actual job in film & TV, specifically runners.

It explained the different types of runners on each set and looked into what sort of jobs runners are expected to do, even telling you how to be the best runner you can and stand out.

Career progression was also an aspect which was looked into briefly, helping you and giving information on how to progress in the Film and TV industry. This week even gave tips on making a CV and even going into what to do in an interview situation.

Class Task - Writing - Sit Com

INT. FBI Offices – Day

We see an elevator, the floor numbers getting higher. There is a ‘ding’ and the doors open. MARTIN, a 30 something desk jockey, steps out of the doors and ‘spy’ music begins to play. He is dressed in a leather jacket and aviators along with a shirt, tie and trousers. He passes a plaque on the wall reading ‘FBI Office 2’ and begins to walk through the office. He passes his co-workers, winking and clicking his fingers at them. They have little to no reaction, looking uninterested or confused. He continues until he reaches his seat where he sits down and the music is cut off. He removes his leather jacket and sunglasses, killing his ‘cool’ image. He begins to type on his keyboard while we hear stereotypical office noises in the background; keyboards, printers etc. NEIL walks up to Martin’s cubicle.

NEIL

Hey, you hear about the Moretti case?

MARTIN

What about it?

NEIL

They busted them last night! Some drug deal in a warehouse downtown

MARTIN

No way! They got them? Who made it?

NEIL

The arrest? Frank and Johnny, those guys are like heroes man

MARTIN

7 years and they finally got them, think of the praise they’re gonna get

NEIL

One job and they’re gonna get more than we’ll ever get in our lifetime sitting at these desks

MARTIN

 Right? If only we could be the guys out there making arrests, huh?

NEIL

If only. And on that note I’ve got to get back to my tedious, mind-numbing paperwork.

They laugh. Neil goes to leave but turns back around.

Oh, by the way, the captain wanted to speak to you.

MARTIN

Oh, this ought to be good.

Martin gets up and approaches the captain’s office. Just before he enters Neil shouts to him.

NEIL

Hey! If you’re fired I’m getting your desk!

Martin laughs and goes into the room.

Unit 30: Advertisement Production For Television - Finished Advert