PT.34 CASTING FOR FILM

Now getting closer to the filming and its the last few lessons before the end of term I decided as a group we needed to discuss and decide on who we are going to cast. After  myself and Kasia doing some discussion on who to cast we decided on the people’s names above. The reason we decided on these people were because..

1)They are are friends and so they are very accessible

2) The main actors and actresses are people who are really good at drama and are good with their facial expressions and body language making it more realistic

and 3) They are all very sensible and will do what we say

After deciding on the actors and actresses I decided to create a group chat with them and ask to see if they wanted to be involved below you will see from the messages after some explaining and convincing they were all willing to do it.

Below are the faces of these actors and actresses who are willing to be involved and a bit of description on them and what they will be doing.

This is Helen who will either be Faith Willow our main girl or an extra who will be in the bar. Helen takes Theatre Studies and is a very strong actress who can take on any role and express it really well and that is the reason why we have considered for her to play this character.

Above is Ethan . Ethan will be playing our detective in the film. Although Ethan does not take drama he is a pass student of drama and so knows his techniques and Ethan takes his drama very seriously and is a good actor with good facial expressions and body language.  He is willing to work with us.

This is Vedannsh, Vedannsh is part of my media team and he wanted to be an actor in this so we decided that he would be the actor who is the bartender and “deals the drugs” to Faith (Helen).

This is Liam

This is Tyla

This is Ana

This is Steph

Above are our extras which will be in the background of the bar. These are our friends who are willing to help out.

 

As you can see from above the Casting did change slightly. For instance we decided Helen would be the main girl and that Ethan would be the Detective. For the extras unfortunately  Declan, Joshua, Craig, Nanouri and Lucy were unable to attend the shooting nights due to other commitments. This was a slight advantage as the people who we did have made the bar feel less crowded and so the focus point would be more on the main actors and actresses and not the extras in the background.

PT.32 LOCATION AND PERMISSION

After looking back at our pitch we decided to keep with the location as g-house sixth form centre and also the surrounding grounds around g-house. While all of us were together in the classroom  I decided that we need to get permission on using the sixth form centre and so Vedannsh offered to email Mr Georgeson to get the permission on using it. We decided on the G-house sixth form centre because it has the bar area and we need that because our story is based in the bar the surrounding areas is for when she runs out the bar and hides behind the tree which is just outside the bar.

The Email for Mr Georgeson and his reply giving us permission to use it.

After getting the permission to use it I decided on that we need to get the photos of the area where we are shooting in so with that I told Sophia,  Kasia and Vedanssh the exact places to take places and so  Vedannsh and Kasia offered to go during one of lessons to take the photos on their phones to take pictures of the location we will be using. We took photos to get a clear idea of where we will be shooting problems we might face and how to resolve them before we start shooting.  Below are the photos they took.

PT.28 Similar Sound

 

 

This is a photo of me analysing the sound in the opening of They Live By Night

 

Above is both the Film Opening for They Live By Night (can be found on Youtube)  and also my analysing of the sound within the Movie. I decided to look at Similar sounds to the movie i’m making because I want to get an idea on why a lot of film Noir films were famous and it is usually down to the music and so i decided to look at the sound in this movie. What I like about this is that it has an intense soundtrack making the audience want to watch more to find out what is going to happening next which I feel would be good for my groups work to have as well.

Thinking about the sort of sound that my group will have to include into our opening is very important  because that is what makes a successful film noir. So I know as well that sound is important because it can build tension and set the scene and we also know what kind of sound levels we should have.

I would like our film to look as classic and original and involve music that will  fit the time period  more specifically. In the opening that I have chosen  ‘They Live By Night’ in this film they have an orchestra (strings,horns,trumpets and drums)  for dramatic effect keeping the audience intrigued the thumping of the drums i feel represent the tension of what is happening in the scene and what is about to happen next.  In ‘They Live By Night’ the music is non-diegetic After looking at a lot of other film noir openings a majority of them have non-diegetic sound in them so  I think my group should use this in our film noir.

 

 

Narrative Theories

With it coming up now to filming our opening of a film we need to look at Narrative Theories such as Vladimir Propp and others to get an idea on what they were and see if we can include them with our filming. To do this I looked on the internet and researched them up to see what i could find out.

Vladimir  Propp- Vladamir is a Russian Critic and a literary theorist. He thought he could see it as having 7 distinct characters

• The hero
• The Villain
• The Donor
• The Dispatcher
• The False Hero
• The Helper
• The Princess (seen as the reward for the hero but needs to be protected from the villain)

Vladimir has made this a very clear and simple narrative theory. It is good however it can also be quite bad, but it does have good points and bad points like any theorist for example in movie’s it could appear all the same and the audience begins to know quite quickly he’s the hero, she’s the princess etc. An example of this theory in place is in Star Wars.

Tzvetan Todorov- He was a Belgium Literary Theorist. He suggests that most narratives start with a state of equilibrium which meant life is normal. However the state of equilibrium and the normality could be disrupted by something good or bad but in the end the outside force is fought against and a new equilibrium comes along and things turn back to Normality.

Todorov style of narrative is very often  used in children’s films. This is because usually the producers often find that to keep such a young audience happy, in the movie there must be a happy ending, so things should always turn out ok in the end. A good example of a film where this narrative is used is in ‘Toy Story’, even in the trailer you can see the equilibrium being interrupted by a “new scenario”.

Roland Barthes – This French semiologist who came up with the idea that five different codes could appear within the text

• enigma code – a mystery within where clues are dropped through out the film and the audience can solve the puzzle before the actors do.
• action code –  This could end with a climax of action but also can build tension throughout to keep the audience intrigued.
• Semantic code – parts within which can refer to other things for example there may be a deeper meaning behind certain objects and also in music.
• Symbolic code – this is about symbolism within it, it can be done to add tension or show greater meaning.
• Cultural code – this could be anything from anything external, whether it be historic, scientific or cultural.

Barthes’ theory is probably the most complex out of the three theorists  I have looked at however these codes which he came up with are very famously used it can be found in almost any movie you watch.

I think overall after looking and exploring these 3 Narrative Theorists I think  my group will mostly likely use a bit of all three of there Narratives.

22.The Universal Ident

Overall after talking with the group we decided that Universal will be the production that will help us  and also we will use their Ident (the one above not the one through times) for the opening of our film. We will be using Universal because they are a widely known distributor and are an effective producer for a lot of various genres of movies. One of their most well knowing Film Noir movies they distributed was The Killers (1946) they made $2.5million in the Box office(US rentals) it has a rating of 7.8/10 which is a very good rating and it became such a  massive hit. This is one of the main reasons why we will using them for our Film Noir because they have great experience with film noir and a lot of their film Noir’s became such big hits and were loved by so many people that we would like ours to be viewed and loved by many others as well.

My Perfect Audience

This is what I see as my perfect audience as well as over 60’s and late teens. I have chosen over 60’s because Film Noir was very popular with them when they were young adults as well and so I think they would still like it.Looking on the website http://www.uktribes.com it gave me the idea on how to deal with the task given and how to pick the perfect audience member.

The reason why picked teenagers and young adults is because i feel they would be very intrigued to the mystery and curiosity as well as the gangs in the films of Film Noir films. Film Noir known for action of which  means a lot of the audience i am targeting both male and female are into action films.

My audience would wear the clothes which are showing above because it’s very casual and thats how I would like my audience to be.

Music that my perfect audience member would listen to is jazz as that was very popular in the 1950s and used in a lot of films in the film noir genre.

 

Results from Audience Research

some of the movies chosen

their reason on why they picked that movie

their reason on why they picked that movie

their reason on why they picked that movie

What they would like to see

After doing some research I realised that I needed to get others opinion on what they like and don’t like in a movie opening. I decided to make a survey on surveymonkey.com and give the survey to some of my friends and family. I ask some of my friends their opinion on movie opening asked a wide range of audience but they were still all in my target audience. I did this because i wanted to see what movies my target audience like and why, what makes a good opening, why the audience like it and how I will please my audience.  From my results I can see that they like a variety of movies et the all have something in common which is drama, this is because we like to see drama it gives excitement and we want to see what happens next. For my opening I will remember to include this to make the audience want to watch more and not bore them. I also found out from this survey that the audience like to see action going on while the opening credits are showing so for my opening I will include this. They also like sound so I will also be including this into my opening of the movie.

PT.20 Looking at Pearl and Dean’s Business section and deciding if their Audience section suits my audience.

I went and looked at the Pearl and Deans Business section under audience  to see what sort of people watch and to see if my target audience is a high number. My target audience being young adults right up to the age of over 60’s.

I decided to look at the Gap Focus graph. From looking at this graph I can see clearly that my target audience is very popular at watching films. With 15-24 age group being 33.2% and 42.6% and the over 55’s being 18.0% and 11.0%. Also the “ABC1″65.4% Shows popularity and is also the target audience. 

I also took a look at the Gap Alcohol graph which is 18 or over films. Looking at it closely there is a higher rate of girls in one section and higher rate of boys in another. This gives me a good idea to see that both genders would be interested in my final opening of my movie. Also in the graph it shows that a majority  over 50s enjoy those films as well which is helpful for me to understand whether they’ll enjoy it or not.

PT.21 Institution’s which may present my movie and make it

After Deciding what our movie is I decided to look at what institutions could we benefit from that will help make our movie a success.

For this point I have decided on two institutions that will most likely produce, distribute and exhibit my Film Noir movie.

My first choice would be: Warner Brothers:

Warner Brothers was founded April 4th 1923 it is one of the most well knowing institutions and most famous  in the world today and it has done hundreds of films and a majority of them becoming a massive hit. I have chosen them because they are a very stable company financially with a majority of their films becoming a hit they create a lot of profit. With this, this means that they can create a very good film and not a cheap budget one they can get more props and better quality of a film for the movie. Warner Brothers also have released a very famous Film Noir called ‘L.A Confidential’.

My other choice would be: Universal Studios

Universal Studios is also another well knowing institution and is also one of the most famous ones out there in the world. It as well likewise to Warner Brothers have done hundreds of movies and a lot of them becoming a massive hit creating a big profit for the institution.  It was founded April 30th 1912 and has growing massively since then. Universal Studios is my second choice because I feel that Universal Studios have high standards because it’s such a well knowing institution and so if they do my film, my film  will get notice more and get more profit for myself and the institution.  I have also chosen them because Universal make a lot of Film Noir Films such as ‘American Gangster’ they are one of the best institutions for when it comes to Film Noir as they always bring excitement and thrills to their movies keeping the audience intrigued.

I would have these companies to exhibit the work as well because they are all well knowing and so more people will see the movie.

MOOD BOARD FOR FILM NOIR

This is my mood board for Film Noir. I have chosen these shots for inspiration for my film Noir. Specifically why I have chosen these photos is that each of them either represent Money, detective, low key lighting, red lipstick, guns (which may include a death), how female are represented, gangs, dark alleyways as well as smoking and drinking. All these things are usually included in a film Noir movie and so that is why I have chosen them. I will most likely use a lot of these things in my Film Noir to make it look more realistic and the right time period.