Mid Term Part A Codes In Film Analysis (Section2)

 Last week, my class was assigned to complete what meant half of our grades in our midterm exam. In this blog, I will be continuing from my previous blog post and document the 2nd section of the assignment.

"What is the main message of the opening sequence?"

The main message is that a lady and two children need to cross a river blindfolded for a long time.

"What is the central belief in the world of the film?"

The central belief is that some sort of entity is roaming their world and they cannot look at it or else they will commit suicide.

"Which group(s) of people/audience is the filmmaker representing in the film?"

The filmmaker represents the group of conspiracy theorists in the film; the people in the film who believe in the end of the world/raptures/etc.

"What images are prioritized in the opening sequence that immediately gains your attention and interest?"

The images include the woman telling the children to never take off their blindfolds and the woman finding her way to the boat.

"What connotations do the images carry?"

The  audience can connote that this situation is serious by the look on the woman's face. They can also connote that their journey will be hard because of the blindfolds.

"What is the enigma in the opening?"

A question to represent the enigma would be "why will anyone die by looking out of their blindfolds?"

Mid Term Part A Codes In Film Analysis (Section 1)

Last week, my class was assigned to complete the first part of our midterm which had 5 sections and was quite lengthy. In this blog, I will be posting section 1 and brushing through the analysis.

What Was The Movie About?

The movie I had chosen was Bird Box, a movie based off of a book which was a fictional book because both the movie and the book were about this  unknown entity roaming around which people can't look at. The reason for not looking at the entity was because people would become mentally ill and commit suicide. The story follows mostly a woman and two children trying to cross a river to find safety and shelter whilst being blindfolded.

General Information

The production and distribution companies included: Universal Pictures, Bluegrass Films, Chris Morgan Productions and Netflix. The screenwriter is Eric Heisserer, director/filmmaker was Susanne Bier, Cinematographer was Salvatore Totino, the year the movie was published was 2018, costume designer was Signe Sijlund and the genres and subgenres included Horror, Sci-Fi, Post-apocalyptic and Thriller.

Characters and Actors

Cheryl- Jacki Weaver

Carlie- Lil Red Howery

Gary- Tom Hollander

Greg- BD Wong

Olympia- Danielle Macdonald

Target Audience

The age that the movie targets/recommends is 17 and over, the movie is not gender specific, race specific or culture specific. Therefore, the movie is very vague on its type of audiences. Psychographics include people who like horror films, sci-fi and post-apocalyptic genres and subgenres. Those who also watch this movie, more than likely, also enjoy: Sarcastic actors, blood, inhuman entities, suicidal topics, etc. I have concluded that this movie would possess a niche audience. This is because Bird Box can only be seen/accessed through a book or on Netflix. This wouldn't attract a huge audience because maybe some people do not like to read and others cannot access Netflix. Another reason could be that there is only one movie & book and there is no sequel for either medium form.

Marketing Strategies

Print - Book, Magazine

Digital - Netflix, Instagram, Facebook, etc.

Outdoor Media - Billboard

Moving Images - Trailer, Commercial, Sneak Peek.

Partnerships with other companies - Universal Pictures, Bluegrass Films, Chris Morgan Productions, Netflix.

Setting, Set Design and Props Preliminary Exercises 2

Our Assignment:

During class, we were instructed to complete 2 slides (one with 9 questions, the other with 10) and submit a screen shot of the two slides onto our blog. The question were meant to be based on movie scenes that were 5 years old or younger, as strategies that were used to create movies older than 5 years were more or less irrelevant to the assignment. One movie, though, had to be realistic. The questions were: Name of the movie and the year it was published; film genre; sense of place; time of day; time period; physical characteristics of set design: style; color; lighting; mood of scene; message of scene.

My Assignment Results:

My assignment ended up with these two screenshots:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAC4OibLP7Y

"Shang Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings" was one of the movies I chose to analyze. It is a movie about a man named Shang Chi who was living in San Francisco with his friend and was interrupted by a group of assassins working in an organization run by his father.

Shang Chi's mother died and his father still thinks that she is alive so he gathers 10 rings to find her and bring her back, whilst everyone knows he is in denial and tries to stop him and all the other dangers that he releases.

"Ferdinand" was the other movie I chose to analyze. The movie starts as the young bull named Ferdinand being soft and picked on by other bulls for not being tough and strong like the others, as he does not want to fight. His father wins in a battle against another bull and is chosen by the matador to fight in more significant matches. He doesn't return and Ferdinand grows up to still be a soft bull that gets adopted by a young girl. His once peaceful life comes crashing down as he is being chased by authorities to return to his former captor and with the help of a goat and three hedgehogs, manage to escape them. In the end, he must fight again El Primero, a bull that never loses.

Setting, Set Design and Props Preliminary Exercise

Production Design

Production design is basically the overall visual look of the production, encapsulating unifying vision for the set design, props and wardrobe. Usually, the director would be responsible for production design as the director is the one that plans where certain objects must be, who plays what role, etc. But why is production design so important to audiences? Production design tells the story within one shot or scene. The purpose of production design is to set the scene's mood, reflect the inner state of a character and articulates the theme of the story. The production designer's job is to use the production design to make the movie aesthetically pleasing, use the production design intelligently to tell a story and to give the audience an idea of what is happening throughout the movie, a breakdown of the story, using setting, set design and props.

Setting in film is more or less what is in the background, the middle-ground and the foreground of the shot. It serves a purpose of telling the audience where the shot/scene is taking place. Key elements to helping the audience to identify genre include the lighting, the color scheme, the camerawork and the framing of the shot.

In this scene from the movie "Coraline", the audience can see that the little girl is enjoying dinner with strange parents. The elements that helped the audience to decode this is that they are in the kitchen which means that they are about to eat. The moon in the background shows that it is night time, therefore, it is dinner time. The reason the parents are 'strange' is because they have buttons in their eyes but they don't look like they are in pain. The father is even talking to Coraline like nothing happened.

Set design and props are objects/furniture in the scene that add meaning and also help with telling the audience. Their significance involves the actors interacting with the set design and props to give the audience an idea of the actor/character's personality; emotion; situation; etc. If an actor goes to sit on a navy-blue chair (set design) and rubs between their eyes whilst facing their head down, the audience can connote that the character is not a very happy or enthusiastic person, and is currently very stressed. If the actor picks up a photo of them and their loved one (prop) from a red, green and white decorated fireplace (set design), and stares at it as tears run down their eyes, it means that they used to be happy and cheery until their loved one passed away or is far away from them.

Viewing this scene from "Cruella", the audience sees the actor holding a cane (prop) to match with their outfit (wardrobe) and they are walking on a stage with a lot of people surrounding the platform and many various visual effects can be seen in the background (set design). The occasional outfit suggests that the character is dressed for something big and the set design shows that that something is: a show. Therefore, the audience can conclude that the character is dressing up for a huge show to show off her outfit.

An example of setting, set design and props in a scene has a shot including: a gas station with a city background at night (setting) with no vehicles in sight, blinking/broken street lights and a few men in the distance (set design). The men have drink in their hands and a girl is running through the street yelling "help!" constantly with her cell phone in her hand and panicking (the objects that were mentioned are props). Clearly something is wrong and the audience is trying to figure out what is wrong. A number of things could be happening at the moment: the girl has lost her mom; she was kidnapped and escaped; she is being chased, etc. The setting, set design and props are significant to this shot because the audience was able to think of multiple scenarios which were more than likely what was happening.