My Christmas Animation

At home I make short sketches and animations with a small group of friends (who have starred in 'Misplaced'), we call ourselves 'Accidentally On Purpose'. It's mainly me and my boyfriend who make the animations and for the past two months we have created a Christmas Lego animation (legomation) to the song 'Merry Christmas Everyone' by Shaking Stevens. It's on our youtube page. We have improved impressively since our first animation that we made in 2008, 'The Ultimate Showdown', we used a better quality camera and we had improved our skills of movement.

For our animations we originally used my camera phone, then I got a better camera phone and now I have a proper 5mp , HD, digital camera with a tripod that we are now using for our new 2010 animation inspired by the '8 Bit Trip' video on youtube.

The Script (edited to final cut)

Jack: (close up of his face, he wakes up confused, camera follows him up) Err… (Looks around) Where am I? (He rubs his eyes and hears a cry for help close by, he turns to look and sees two people shouting, he panics and runs towards them) What is it, what’s wrong?

Matt: (Matt and John look at Jack) what’s a four letter word that sounds like zero?

Jack: (Looks very confused and slightly annoyed) Wha? (Matt and John look at him with hope)…What the F-

(Title cuts in and music plays)
(Close up on a scrunching up the crossword. P and A are in disbelief.)

Matt: Wha?! Why did you do that for? I was going to win an Nintendo 360!

Jack: Err… umm… I’m sorry it’s just-

Matt: You have no consideration for other people’s feelings!

Jack: But I thought you guys were seriously hurt or something

(Pause)

John: It’s not like you would have won any way…

(Pause)

Matt: What do you mean? You said the Magic 8 ball said I was gonna win!

John: …I lied (Matt looks stunned. Pause)

Jack: Any way, how did you guys get here anyway?

John: The Magic 8 Ball took us here. I was thinking of Thorpe Park but Matt the animal lover here (looks at Matt) was day dreaming about the woods.

Matt: You're mean, I did nothing!

Jack: What? I don’t understand

John: Well… I have this special power you see… I ask the Magic 8 ball to take me anywhere I want and as long as I keep the picture in my head it will take me there, this involves other people if they are tagging along too.

Jack: (Laughs) that’s a bit stupid!

John: Don’t insult her! (Talks to the Magic 8 ball and strokes it) It's ok he didn’t mean it, he’s just ignorant.

Jack: O…kay. Can it take us back?

John: I’ll try. Lets all think of a place (Talks to the magic 8 ball) Magic 8 ball can you take us back home? (Shakes the 8 ball, they all surround it. A message slowly appears on the magic 8 ball “Ask me later”) Ask me later?! What?! (talks to the 8 ball) I’m sorry sweety, I didn’t mean to shout. Are you upset with the bad man you called you stupid, don’t worry M is here –

(Jack and Matt walk off, leaving John talking to the 8 ball)

Matt: So… Who are you anyway and how did you get here?

Jack: I’m A and umm… I’m not sure (puts hand on chin as he looks up)

(FLASH BACK STARTS)

Jack: (walks along and falls down stairs) Whoaah! (shot of him lying at the bottom of the stairs)

Lawyer: (appears from nowhere) Have you had an accident at home or work? At Lawyers that sue for gold we are real lawyers that get you the gold that you deserve... all of it! (shot of hand trapped in door) You see that hand? Sued! (shot of block of wood on floor) You see that bit of wood that shouldn't of been there? Sued! (shot of stairs) You see them stairs? Sued! (shot of lawyer) So if your interested call '0800 give me gold'... we're real lawyers!

(FLASH BACK ENDS)

Matt: Pfft, that’s your power? (Laughs)

Jack: (Dazed and confused) Wha…What? …Power?

Matt: We all saw it

Jack: What? My flash back? I didn’t know I could do that… I don’t remember a lawyer being there.

John: I didn’t know I could teleport with my magic 8 ball.

Matt: That’s your power, you have flash backs in advert form… and we can see it too! (Laughs)

Jack: (Doesn’t look amused) So how did I get this?

John: It’s this place I think

(Screams are heard from the distance getting closer, they all turn around)

Jack: What’s that? (takes a step towards the scream)

(P.O.V shot of person running, panting and screaming. Shot of everyone from behind watching W stop)

Jack: Are you ok?

Blaire Witch Project girl: (out of breath) Get…. yourselves…. out of here!

(Matt, Jack and John look confused)

Matt: What?

Blaire Witch Project girl: (catches her breath) THERE’S A MAN EATING PLUSHY TOY BACK THERE!!!

John: What?!P: No way!

Blaire Witch Prject girl: (looks back) RUN! (Runs off screen)

Jack: … What’s going on?!

John: AAHHH!!!

Matt: Oh wow a 'Hello Kitty'!

John: It’s a killer 'Hello Kitty'!

Matt: Don’t worry guys (close up on Matt's face)… I think I’ve just discovered my power. (walks up to the polar bear) Hello, 'Hello Kitty' (close up on bears face, then back to Matt)

Jack: (whispers) What is he doing?

John: (loudly) I don’t know. ('Hello Kitty' looks at M and snarls, he looks back at Matt and attacks)

Matt: AAHHHH!!! John you idiot! (he collapses whilst being mauled, the other two look away and run. Extreme close ups on 'Hello Kitty' attacking Matt. We see John and Jack stop, out of breath)

Jack: … Are you ok?

John: Yeah, you?

Jack: Yeah… you going to be ok?

John: Sure, why?

Jack: You’re friend just got killed…

John: Yeah… he’ll be remembered (voice is heard from a distance “I’m ok!”)

Jack: What was that?

John: Yup…. He’ll always be remembered (voice heard from distance “No seriously guys I’m ok! Wait for me!”) … Always

(They continue walking through the woodland. Suddenly they are at the exit)

Jack: There's the exit?!

John:

Jack: Oh no! (shot of the 'Hello Kitty' sitting in the way of the exit)

John: Right that's it! (Looks at the magic 8 ball) Magic 8 ball, shall I go over there and kick that 'Hello Kitty'? (Shakes the magic 8 ball) Yes! Hold this (plants the magic 8 ball in Jacks hand and runs up to the 'Hello Kitty' and kicks it) Whooaaah!

(They both run out of the woodland and onto the path where there is a road)

Jack: (Puts his arms in the air in triumph) Free dome!

John: (Looks at the camera) Can you stop filiming us now?

Off Screen Director: No sorry mate, we have another three series to make out of this.

Jack: What? What the f-

(Camera cuts. Fin.)

Editing

I've been editing our film using I-Movie on the macs. We haven't completed it yet but it's going good so far. I've noticed some problems, it was very windy the day we filmed and unfortunately you can hear it on the tape, we may have to use music to cover it up. I really like what I've done with the scene where you first see the Hello Kitty, I've made the clips quick to raise the tension and the lame acting makes it funny too. Although I may like what I've done others may not, so we'll have to show it to an audience and ask for their opinion and advice on how to improve it if we were to do it again.

Hello Kitty

Hello Kitty is a fictional character produced by the Japanese company Sanrio, first designed by Ikuko Shimizu. Hello Kitty is known world wide and sells products such as dolls, stickers, cards, clothes and bags.

Hello Kitty is a white, female cat with a red bow and no mouth that lives in London, this makes her cute and appealing to young girls who possibly live or adore London.

Cats are the second most popular pet in the United Kingdom, this may be one of the reasons why 'Hello Kitty' is so popular. In 2008 the main reasons people kept cats as pets were for:
Companionship: 27%
Love: 31%
Easy maintainance: 7%
Gets on with other species: 3%

Here are the statistics of the population of pets in the United Kingdom that I found here
Dog: 23% (6.0 million households)
Cat: 20% ( 5.2 million households)
Indoor Fish: 10 % (2.6 million households)
Outdoor Fish: 8% (2.1 million households)
Rabbits: 2.8% (0.7 million households)
Indoor Birds: 1.8% (0.5 million households)
Guinea Pigs: 1.3% (0.3 million households)
Hamster: 1.3% (0.3 million households)
Domestic Fowl: 0.8% (0.21 million households)
Horses/Ponies: 0.3% (0.16 million households)
Tortoises/turtles: 0.3% (0.16 million households)
Gerbils: 0.5% (0.13 million households)
Snakes: 0.4% (0.10 million households)
Lizards: 0.4% (0.10 million households)
Rats: 0.3% (0.08 million households)

Filming success!

Today we spent around 3 hours filming our short film and it was brilliant. We had 5 copies of the script so the cast and crew had a script to look at. We filmed each clip two times or more, because we needed to have a few to select from in case there were any mistakes or the lighting and sound was wrong.

We had to make a few changes. We forgot to bring a polar bear plushie, but luckily a helping friend had a Hello Kitty on her, so we used that instead. We actually thought that this may be more humorous than using a polar bear, because Hello Kitty is more recognisable and it supposed to be a cute friendly kitten but in this we have turned her into a killer. We also ran out of time to film the 3 different endings, so we chose the one we liked the best, which was the second one, and filmed that.

I did most of the filming and I filmed every scene atleast twice for a more veriety when editing, also if there where any mistakes we had another clip for back up. When Kyle was on camera I directed him and tried to make him feel confident with his work. For each scene we had the actors, Darren, Tom and Jonny learning their lines before we recorded.

We made the final decision of names yesterday. We have named the advert flash back character Jack, after the main character in 'Lost'. The plushie talker was named Matt, after Matt Parkman from 'Hereos'. The magic 8 ball character John, is named after John Locke from 'Lost'.

Here are some photos of us on set:

Here are some photos for the poster:

Cast & Costume

Jonny Ellis will be playing Jack, wearing blue jeans and a green coat.

Darren Stapleton will be playing Matt, wearing blue jeans and a grey coat.

Tom Bircham will be playing John, wearing blue jeans and a black leather coat.

Tom High will be playing the lawyer in the flash back, wearing a black suit and tie with a white shirt.

I will be playing 'The Blair Witch Project' girl, wearing blue jeans and a long black coat.

The reason why we have them all wearing blue jeans because in 'Lost' the cast generally wear jeans all the time. We have them wearing coats because in 'Lost' they all seam to wear just t-shirts and they have a bit of flesh showing, so we did the opposite and had our cast covered up.

Alternate Endings

Ending 1: They teleport out of the woods using the magic 8 ball and end up in school with Mr Stay Puft.

Ending 2: Plushie is in the way of the exit, Magic 8 ball gets annoyed and asks the magic 8 ball if he should kick it, it says yes so kicks the plushie and they get away.

Ending 3: They get out and the magic 8 ball accidentally gets shaken and they are teleported back into the middle of the woods.

We will film all of the alternate endings and show them to a group of people and ask for their opinion and their reactions. Also our choice of ending may be due to how long they are to keep the short film at 5 minutes.

Location Hunting

Today we went location hunting, we have recorded our journey and thoughts and ideas of different locations within Mousehold Heath.

We also took photos to get more of a feel of the ideal locations

Slide Show

I made a power point presentaion on the technical side of our filming and how It relates to Lost and Heros. I can't upload the presention so here are the screen shots of it.

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5
Page 6

Page 7

Script Analysis

"A: (close up of his face, he wakes up confused, camera follows him up) Err… (Looks around) Where am I?" - He has woken up in the middle of a forest with out knowing how he got there.



"P: (P and M looks at A) what’s a four letter word that sounds like zero?" - the answer is hero, referring to the programme 'Heroes'.



"A: (Looks very confused and slightly annoyed) Wha? (P and M looks at him with hope)…What the F-" - This is to break the tension into the title, like 'Lost' where they build up tension before the titles.



"M: The Magic 8 Ball took us here. I was thinking of Thorpe Park but P the animal lover here (looks at P) was day dreaming about the woods." - This is just to explain how the other two characters got into the woods.



"A: (Laughs) that’s a bit stupid!" "M: Don’t insult her! (Talks to the Magic 8 ball and strokes it) Its ok he didn’t mean it, he’s just ignorant." - We needed to make it hard for them to get back to where they were from, so we gave the 8 ball a personality and it didn't like being called stupid, so it refused to take them anywhere



"M: (talks to the 8 ball) I’m sorry sweety, I didn’t mean to shout. Are you upset with the bad man you called you stupid, don’t worry M is here" - We made this character to be obsessed, almost in love, with the magic 8 ball to mock 'Gollum' from 'Lord of the Rings' and to create humour.



"P: So… Who are you anyway and how did you get here?" - This question is what the audience wants to know, but you don't actually find out how he got there, the flash back is completely irrelevant and explains nothing, just like in 'Lost' where nothing is explained.



"(P.O.V shot of person running, panting and screaming. Shot of everyone from behind watching W stop)" - This is mocking 'The Blaire Witch Project' where every shot is a point of view, hand held shot. And that there is a lot of panicking and screaming in it.



"P: Oh wow a polar bear!" - There was a polar bear in the middle of the forest in 'Lost' that made no sense, so we mocked that and had it kill one of our actors.



"P: Don’t worry guys (close up on P’s face)… I think I’ve just discovered my power. (walks up to the polar bear) Hello, Polar Bear (close up on bears face, then back to P)" - We want to do this to mock 'Heroes' where you see them discover they're powers but he is an over the top, comic book super hero, unlike the characters in 'Heroes'.



"M: Yup…. He’ll always be remembered (voice heard from distance “No seriously guys I’m ok! Wait for me!”) … Always" - It's a text book technique of misdirection, he believes his friend is dead yet we can here him in the distance calling "I'm ok!"

The Script (no ending)

A – Advert flash back person
P – Plushie talker
M – Magic 8 ball person
W – Blair Witch Person
L – Fake Lawyer

A: (close up of his face, he wakes up confused, camera follows him up) Err… (Looks around) Where am I? (He rubs his eyes and hears a cry for help close by, he turns to look and sees two people shouting, he panics and runs towards them) What is it, what’s wrong?!

P: (P and M looks at A) what’s a four letter word that sounds like zero?

A: (Looks very confused and slightly annoyed) Wha? (P and M looks at him with hope)…What the F-

(Title cuts in and music plays)

(Close up on a scrunching up the crossword. P and A are in disbelief.)

P: Wha?! Why did you do that for? I was going to win an Xbox 360!

A: Err… umm… I’m sorry it’s just-

P: You have no consideration for other people’s feelings!

A: But I thought you guys were seriously hurt or something

(Pause)

M: It’s not like you would have won any way…

(Pause)

P: What do you mean? You said the Magic 8 ball said I’d win!

M: …I lied

(P looks stunned. Pause)

A: Any way, how did you guys get here anyway?

M: The Magic 8 Ball took us here. I was thinking of Thorpe Park but P the animal lover here (looks at P) was day dreaming about the woods.

P: You're mean, I did nothing!

A: What? I don’t understand

M: Well… I have this special power you see… I ask the Magic 8 ball to take me anywhere I want and as long as I keep the picture in my head it will take me there, this involves other people if they are tagging along too.

A: (Laughs) that’s a bit stupid!

M: Don’t insult her! (Talks to the Magic 8 ball and strokes it) Its ok he didn’t mean it, he’s just ignorant.

A: O…kay. Can it take us back?

M: I’ll try. Lets all think of a place (Talks to the magic 8 ball) Magic 8 ball can you take us back home? (Shakes the 8 ball, they all surround it. A message slowly appears on the magic 8 ball “Ask me later”) Ask me later?! What?! (talks to the 8 ball) I’m sorry sweety, I didn’t mean to shout. Are you upset with the bad man you called you stupid, don’t worry M is here – (A and P walk off, leaving M talking to the 8 ball)

P: So… Who are you anyway and how did you get here?

A: I’m A and umm… I’m not sure (puts hand on chin as he looks up)

(FLASH BACK STARTS)

A: (A walks along and falls down stairs) Whoaah! (shot of him lying at the bottom of the stairs)

L: (appears from nowhere) Have you had an accedent at home or work? At Lawyers that sue for gold we are real lawyers that get you the gold that you deserve... all of it! (shot of hand trapped in door) You see that hand? Sued! (shot of block of wood on floor) You see that bit of wood that shouldn't of been there? Sued! (shot of stairs) You see them stairs? Sued! (shot of lawyer) So if your interested call '0800 give me gold'... we're real lawyers!

(FLASH BACK ENDS)

P: Pfft, that’s your power? (Laughs)

A: (Dazed and confused) Wha…What? …Power?

P: We all saw it

A: What? My flash back? I didn’t know I could do that… I don’t remember a lawyer being there.

M: I didn’t know I could teleport with my magic 8 ball.

P: That’s your power, you have flash backs in advert form… and we can see it too! (Laughs)

A: (Doesn’t look amused) So how did I get this?

M: It’s this place I think

(Screams are heard from the distance getting closer, they all turn around)

A: What’s that? (takes a step towards the scream)

(P.O.V shot of person running, panting and screaming. Shot of everyone from behind watching W stop)

A: Are you ok?

W: (out of breath) Get…. yourselves…. out of here!(P, A and M look confused)

P: What?

W: (catches her breath) THERE’S A MAN EATING PLUSH TOY BACK THERE!!!

M: What?!

P: No way!

W: (looks back) RUN! (Runs off screen)

A: … What’s going on?!

M: AAHHH!!!

P: Oh wow a polar bear!

M: It’s a killer polar bear!

P: Don’t worry guys (close up on P’s face)… I think I’ve just discovered my power. (walks up to the polar bear) Hello, Polar Bear (close up on bears face, then back to P)

A: (whispers) What is he doing?

M: (loudly) I don’t know. (Polar bear looks at M and snarls, he looks back at P and attacks)

P: AAHHHH!!! M you idiot! (he collapses whilst being mauled, the other two look away and run. Extreme close ups on bear attacking P. We see M and A stop, out of breath)

A: … Are you ok?

M: Yeah, you?

A: Yeah… you going to be ok?

M: Sure, why?

A: You’re friend just got killed…

M: Yeah… he’ll be remembered (voice is heard from a distance “I’m ok!”)

A: What was that?

M: Yup…. He’ll always be remembered (voice heard from distance “No seriously guys I’m ok! Wait for me!”) … Always

Planning for group presentation

7 minute presentation per group including:
-Semiotics
-Meta-analysis
-Analysis of directors
-Evidence of criticising/denoting
-Storyboard
-Location
-Sound (non diagetic, ambient, contractual, synchronous,
asynchronous)
-Lighting
-Script
-Editing
-Camera

Links: http://www.virtualmediastudies.com/
http://getaheadocrmedia.blogspot.com/

Time Tables and Names

Me and Kyle had a meeting to discuss when our possible actors are free to film. We made a time table with everyone we know who can film and wrote than the times they were free, we also included me and Kyle. We have discovered that Wednesday is our best day. We have assigned possible actors to characters due to what we have worked out from the time table, but we need to double check whether our actors can make it to our location, Mousehold Heath.
After this we discussed the names for our characters, we decided to take the names of who they relate to from Lost or Heroes and change it a bit. For the Plushie talker we related him to "Matt Parkman" from Heroes, because he can read peoples minds. We could parody this in a similar manor, I thought we could change the "man" in Matt's last name to a bear or some sort of animal, but we couldn't think of anything that would fit. Kyle then suggested "Matt Packman", because it sounds similar, people will be able to recognise it and it's humorous. For the Magic 8 Ball person we want his name to be like John Locke from Lost. We thought of John Lockpick, but we weren't too sure. Then I thought of John Ball-Locke because the last name sounds like "bollocks", but the jokes may get too repetitive.

The Story Board

Kyle has done the story board for our film and it looks great, I really like his style of drawing. If I did it I would of done stick men like in my story board for my AS project. I'm now writing the script, working from the story board. You can see from the story board that Kyle has gotten everything we have talked about in there.

Changes

Me and Kyle had a meeting on the subject of characters. We both have decided that we have too many characters. It would be hard to try and get everyone we needed to be able to film at the same time. Also Kyle discovered, whilst story boarding, that he couldn't find a way to introduce some of the characters. We have decided to eliminate the mind reader, although it was a very good idea we think that it would be difficult to constantly have his thoughts out loud and people to respond to it. We will kill off the plushie talker by the plushie eating him.

We haven't assigned anyone to a character yet because we a still organising whether people are free at the same time. We only have three main characters now; the advert flash back person; the plushie talker and the magic 8 ball person. We have sub characters; the Blair witch student, played by me; and the fake lawyer in the advert.

My review on 'Colraline' 3D on DVD

When I saw 'Coraline' in the cinema I fell in love with it, the 3D technology was absolutely amazing and made everything look real. The stop-motion animation was unbelievable, everything looked alive and I kept wondering how big the sets and characters actually were.

I got Coraline in 3D on DVD, I was disappointed with the 3D technology, it was not the same as the technology in the cinema. It was like the old red and blue glasses, but instead is was green and purple. It said it would take 5 minutes for your eyes to adjust and me and my family couldn't cope, our eyes hurt and we had to turn it off and put the 2D version on. The film was still great in 2D but there was no depth and it didn't have the same effect.

I watched the making of Coraline and It was really overwhelming how much they had to do. They had multiple sets, people and costumes. They had over a hundred pairs of hands and clothes that were all identical. Everything that moved had wires in them so they weren't flimsy, were easy to animate and so big character were held up securely. There was one animator per scene, to make a fast progress of the film. I saw a clip of someone animating the scene of the other father playing on the piano and the movement was so small for every scene, they did this to get a smooth, realistic movement. The heads where in two parts and there were many differen't expressions for both the top half and the bottom. The top half has the eyes and eyebrows and the bottom has the mouth. To make the character look even more realistic their hair was real, but they had glued each strand and added coloured wire so it could be easerly animated.

To make the film 3D they explained that you see everything different from your right eye to your left eye and that's what they did, they took every frame twice from two different very slightly perspectives. To save the animators from making mistakes on where the camera is positioned they had a machine that when they took the first frame the camera would move slightly to the side and take the second frame, then move back ready for the next frame.

I have done animations with my friends outside of lessons, obviously they aren't as good as this. Most of our animations are Lego music videos, we have started on a Christmas one on the song "Merry Christmas Everyone". We do have one animation where the only character, Bubble, is made out of blue tack. One of our recent Bubble episodes has a sheep, Sketch, that was inspired by Shaun from 'Wallace and Gromit'. Sketch's body is made of a toilet roll tube covered in white cotton from an old jumper, his head and legs are made out of plasticine with wire inside to hold him up and to move his head.

Post Modern Madonna

Our film so far seems to be quite post modern because of the parodying and outrageousness of it, so I've done some research into post modern and for my example I've used Madonna "Queen of pop".

Madonna is fake on the surface and that is one of the reasons why she is so postmodern. Madonna always puts on a show acting as someone else, this is shown in many of her music videos. For example in ‘Material Girl’ you see a curtain open, she then dances and at the end the curtain closes. This makes the music video look like a performance, that it was not real, and the audience understood. But she breaks her own boundaries in ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ where there was no hint or symbol to show that this was just a show. This confused a lot of the audience because it made them think whether she was telling us about an emotional event that happened in her life.

Madonna made a documentary of her self to show the public what her life is like backstage. In the video she is obviously not being her self, she shows off in a flirty way to lure the male audience to like her and watch more. She is nice to her father, but a vast amount of the public know that she doesn’t like her father, one of the reasons is because he married their house keeper who Madonna didn’t get along with "I didn't accept my stepmother when I was growing up... In retrospect, I think I was really hard on her." This shows that she is postmodern because she is showing the public what her life is like yet she is not showing the real truth about her, then the public is left to believe that this documentary is real. She shows off in a flirty way by revealing her breasts to the camera after a show, for no reason at all.

What is also postmodern about Madonna is her representation of gender. She breaks the tradition of women wearing women clothes and men wearing men clothes by dressing up as both. Like in her music video ‘Express Yourself’ she is seen wearing a suit and a monocle, she then opens her jacket and reveals her bra. This represents that if you are a woman wearing men’s clothes it doesn’t stop you from being a woman underneath. Also in one of her live shows she has men dressed as women and women dressed as men.

As well as her representation of gender that is postmodern, her sexuality is merged into it too. In one of her live shows she has a lot of lesbians and gays dancing and kissing. In one of her recent publicity stunts she was in a music video with Brittany Spears, ‘Me Against The Music’ in 2003 and they shared a full on kiss. Once again she had shocked the public. This shows that she is postmodern because even though she is straight she can kiss women too.

Madonna’s entire postmodernism put together makes her even more postmodern. Madonna knows how to push people’s buttons and will do anything to surprise, shock, get attention and insult the public. She’ll bundle different sensitive subjects together and splash them out for everyone to see and make the audience question whether it is real, that’s why Madonna is so postmodern.

My review on Disneys new film 'Up'

Here is my review on the Disney Pixar film 'Up'. The text in blue relates back to my work.

Today I saw 'Up' in 3D at the cinema. I thought this film was too sensitive to be classed as a U. It touched very sensitive areas that I believe young children may not understand or may end up being distraught. The film started with the main character, Carl Fredricksen, as a young boy. You see him befriend a young girl, Ellie, and you watch them grow up together, getting married and growing old. What I think the younger audience may not understand is when the couple find out they can’t have a baby, all you see is Ellie and Carl upset in a hospital where there is a poster of a baby on the wall. This made me and I believe a lot of the older audience quite moved. There’s one part that made me very upset, when the couple were quite old, Carl buys tickets for them to go on holiday but Ellie gets ill and unfortunately dies. This made my partner very distraught because it had brought back bad memories of his grandparents and he couldn’t enjoy the rest of the film. It kept coming back up during the film and I could see my partner was unhappy about it. If this film could make a couple of young adults cry then how will those who are younger than us react? I believe they would either not understand or care, or get very upset. That’s why I think this film should be a PG so parents can see this before their children and decide whether it’s ok for their children to watch. This made me think about the rating of our film, we'll need to put alot of thought into who should be our target audience and then once it's finished think again if our audience we have chosen it the right one. Our film may not have any sad moments, but it's still important to get the target audience right

After the very sad beginning the film tries to balance out the emotions throughout the film by bringing in the comedy with a little boy, Russell, a snipe (bird) called Kevin, who ends up being a girl, and a talking dog called Doug.



But before the film started we were softened up by a Pixar short, 'Partly Cloudy'. It looks like the story was based on the tale of stalks delivering babies, I guess no one thought of where the stalk gets the baby from so Pixar jumped in there and thought this out. Bassically all of the stalks go to seperate clouds, these clouds make babies, not just humans but animals too but there's this one cloud that creates not very nice animals, like crocodiles, that the stalk gets hurt by. Eventually the stalk goes to another cloud and his original cloud gets upset and starts raining, but the stalk come back wearing a helmet and knee pads, his cloud his happy again and hands him the next baby, it's an eel and the stalk gets electricuted. I loved it, it was short but sweet. This shows how such a simple short story can be succesful, maybe if we made ours this simple it would be easier for people to like it, but I think they did this for the younger audience since there is no speach in it. Our film is going to be more complex so the audience will be older and more likely to laugh at the parts we are parodying, this is another reason why we should think about the target audience.



This was the 6th film I've seen with the new 3D technology and It still amazes me. The picture is in such depth as well as things stretching out at you. I liked that the makers didn't deliberately have things coming at you like in the old 3D films such as Spy Kids 3D. I could really believe that this film was a real world because of the depth, I believe the makers a very pleased with how it's turned out. I think it would be great to have our film in 3D, so the audience can feel like they are part of the story.

Changing Powers

I've giving one of Kyles ideas some thought. I've decided, and Kyle agrees, that having someone who goes the opposite way to where he wants is a bad idea because it will get no where in the film. We've been talking about what to replace it with and have come up with someone who can teleport, he can teleport with a magic 8 ball and if it says "yes" as he is thinking of a place to teleport to. We could parody Ghost Busters, when they all had to think of nothing but one of them thought of Mr Stay puft and a giant one appears. We can't have a giant Mr Stay puft but we could do something similar. I have a toy of Mr Stay Puft that we could use, we could have a scene where they teleport to a place where he is, or we could have one appear to where they are.

Clever Idea from me!

We have talked about mind reading powers, but the mind reader hears things differently, with words missing/changed. Then I thought instead of a mind reader, someones thoughts could be heard by everyone. We could really make this funny, we could introduce his power first easily and have him think of something out of the ordinary. We can make him inappropriate, insulting or just in his random little world. Although this may be difficult to work it in to the script, with having to constantly have his thoughts being heard.

Clever Ideas from Kyle

We need pointless super hero powers so we've been thinking of what powers would work, in a humorous way, in the film. So Kyle came up with some brilliant ideas. We've previously discussed that there would be a killer plushie (teddy) in the film that chases and eats someone running past filming their own version of 'The Blair Witch Project', so Kyle said we could have one person who can talk to plushies and try and reason with the killer plushie, but the plushie attacks them anyway. I thought this would be really funny, we just discussed whether to have the plushie talk as well but we thought that might be a bit too much and take the humour out of it. Kyle also suggested that someone could have the ability to travel the exact opposite way to where he/she wants to go, I think this is a funny idea as well because it would make the film even more insane with all the time skipping as well. And his last idea was some one who has flash backs but in advert form, this would be great because we could parody many well known adverts on television today.

Deciding

Me and Kyle thought that the best thing to parody is a drama/action film. The first film that came to mind was comic books/marvel films because we could really exaggerate the style and make it funny by the characters having pointless powers. We then thought of Lord of the Rings because it is an epic adventure and we can really use the story and turn it into something funny and stupid. After a while we started thinking about television programmes because people are more likely to recognise what we are parodying. Immediately we thought of Lost and Heroes. Lost because we can have a group of people lost in a woodland where time keeps skipping and within it random things happen, such as someone suddenly sitting on the floor playing monopoly. And Heroes because we like the pointless super hero idea.

Production Plan Meeting

Today me and Kyle discussed on what parodies we like and what ones we would like to use for our short film. We first thought of Hot Fuzz, I like how this film parodies police dramas. But we want to do something more "super hero" and really over the top so Kyle suggested Mystery Men and explained that the film is about these people who have stupid super hero powers. I need to rent this film to understand it more. We also thought of Monty Python because we love how over the top and stupid it is.

Welcome

Hello readers, this blog is for my Media Studies A2 work. I will be working very hard, posting and uploading a lot of work. I will be working with Kyle who is amazing at art and is a very creative thinker. We have been discussing different ideas for the year. We've narrowed it down to doing a short parody/comedy film, our references are The IT Crowd, Scrubs, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Mall Cop .For our sub projects we will possible be doing two posters or two radio trailers and a film magazine review page. We've decided on the titles that we will have, I will be the director and sound, Kyle will be camera man and story boarding and we will both be editors and story writers.

There is a possible mini project that will be a machinima film. Kyle is looking into it and seeing if it is possible.