Context 2 Essay

I sent off my first draft of the essay on Thursday 28th, I recieved feedback the same day and have been working on the feedback for the past 3 days! I am going to send my 2nd draft tonight and hopefully get a better result! :D

Studio practice and Design- Lecture by Danny 26/10/10

In this lecture we talked about recording studios and equipment:

• Echo: Vibration of the walls

• That Curved walls are better for sound for the ecustics to bounce off.

• Wooden Room: is for recording vocals

• Stone Room: is for recording drums

Deborah's Lecture 26/10/10

In Deborah's lecture we talked about the Reece Sheet (Reconnaissance) and about being a location manager and how many things a location manager has to do which I did not realise.

Deborah mentioned a really useful website for locations

http://source-em-media.org/uk

Later on we did an exercise on trying to remember the sorts of things that are said on set for example:

• "Silence on Set"

• "Everybody ready"

• "Roll Camera"

• "Rolling"

• wait 10 seconds "Speed"

• "Action"

• "Cut"

• "It's a take"

This was a very useful exercise and good fun.

Jim Shorthose Lecture 26/10/10

I again found this lecture not that great of use, Jim mentioned that you should find relationships when you leave university and I think thats quite obvious to be honest. He was explaining more is different and to embrace your own ignorance and that it can be useful. He mentioned you should encourage encounters and pay attention to local information ie. your own network. One thing I found fascinating was that he mentioned 15,000 films have been made since Motion pictures began featuring over 300,000 crew.

Seeing the Script 29/10/10- Lecture by Jools

In this lecture Jools talked about seeing the script:

• Thematic concern: conflict- causes concern

• Idiosyncrasies: definition, unique characteristics

• Disparity: difference- example Beautiful mind, fight club, inception

• Epoch: age for example 20th century

• Beats: are a moment of decisive realisation for any character

We were put into groups for our next coursework piece I was put with 6 other people so we have a team of 7 and we were given the script called Fell and we dicussed our roles and this is what we decided:

1. Bejamin King: Director and Location Manager

2. Charlotte Cochrane: Producer, camera assistant and photographer

3. Thomas Pierrepont: Camera, post production visual effects

4. David Casey: Sound assistant and post production music/effects, lighting

5. Laura Read: Editing, runner, health and safety representative

6. Mike Wilson: Sound recording and post production music/effects, props

7. Alex Lea-Hayes: production assistant, locations assistant and titles designer

We have also set up a group on facebook so if we ever need to get in contact as well as having all each other's numbers its a good way of contacting each other.

Jim Shorthose Lecture 29/10/10

This lecture actually made a lot more sense to me as I said to Jim I really do not understand what he is going on about, he was explaining a bit better saying your relationships to the network, that the solution is never right in-front of you, creativity- you should feel confused about. He explained the exercises he did last week explaining that 90% of the way your going wrong but you end up in the right place.

• Lateral thinking: thinking outside the box
• Counter-intution for navigation: asking questions you don't know the answers to.
• Public Sector: Government
• Motivation: looking for alternatives
• Anomelies: odd situation
• Pecha Kucha- chit chat: japanese film
• There is more networking in bigger cities like London, Manchester.

On saturday 30/10/10

Monster by Gareth Edwards

I went and saw Monster by Gareth Edwards and I was really impressed with the film, I thought it was really good and I was really glad I went. Later on he had a masters class to where he went into detail about how he created the film and it was really interesting and I learnt some wicked things.

p.s sorry about the quality it was on my phone.

Tomorrow Goal

I am going to try finish off Topaz by Alfred Hitchcock tomorrow and post my notes on here and I hired The Conversation from the Library so I am going to try watch this also and post my notes up. I Also want to read the two books I am currently reading so I can put the next chapters notes on here and attempt to start The Film Directors Intuition by Judith Weston tomorrow as it will help a lot with my new coursework piece. I also have a book called Voice and Vision by Hurbis-Cherrier which I will try to read the first chapter and post my notes also up here.

Directing Film Techniques and Aesthetics

I also purchased this book the other week and aim also planning to be making notes on here for each chapter.

Chapter 1: The World Of The Film Director

• Cinema is a great art form of our time.
• the first complete version of a film is called the director's cut.
• Directing means developing the skills and persuasion to make everybody give of their very best.
• A lot of learning in filmmaking is negative learning, as you mature you come to understand how to fulfil your audience.

I feel from reading a part of the first chapter this book has a lot of tips and will really benefit me in many ways.

The Visual Story

I purchased this book the other week and I am continuing to read it chapter by chapter writing my notes on here.

Chapter 2: Contrast and Affinity

• Visual structure is based on the understanding of the principle of contrast and affinity.
• Contrast: Difference
• Tone: brightness of an object
• Affinity: Similarity
• Contrast: Greater Visual Intensity
• Affinity: Less Visual Intensity
• Storyboard: is a set of drawings that illustrate what the final film will look like.

I have been extremely busy over this last week I have been working on my Context 2 essay I plan to have a draft finished today!

I watched the film Robin Hood which Jools mentioned we should see and I thought it was really good I had heard bad things from it but I would say its a must watch to people, it takes a while to get into but once you understand I think it s a really good film.

Deborah asked me last week to come up with a few ideas for some adverts and I came up with 3 not sure if there even that great but thought i d post them on here to see if anyone likes them:

1. This advert would be for a phone company, most people have a case for their phone, I had an idea that instead of putting your phone in a case you put a little person- the customer- showing that this network will do anything for their customers and that they are trustworthy and loyal.

2. Fedex- I had an idea that Fedex would be delivering a cake for a little girl for her birthday but the cake gets ruined as do a lot of people parcels sometimes, Fedex go out and replace the cake showing that they aim to deliver and to never disappoint.

3. For an energy efficient advertisement, someone in on a train and realises that they have left there oven on, however there phone allows them to activate a voice control to the house to turn it off.

Lecture 22nd October: Jools

In this lecture Jools discussed Mis-en-scene: Which is a french word for within the scene. We watched a series of clips from films analysing:

• Blocking: Actors in relation to each other
• Camera: Choice of lens
• Image Design: Use of colour
• Dramatic Content: Rhythms
• Sound Design: Diegetic

Diegetic: Sound that is already there

Non-Diegetic: Sound that is added

Jools mentioned we should download Celtx, its to help us with scripts and I have done that so hopefully it should help me.

Jools also mentioned we should watch a film called The Conversation by Francis Ford Coppola so I will be getting that out of the library to watch as its suppose to be a great example of Mis-en-scene.

Later on in groups we looked at the script called tea which I found was very odd script, we sat in our groups discussing it and to see what we could change. We came to the following solutions that there referring to the tea as being a sexual thing.

Lecture: Phil 22/10/10

Later on I had a lecture by Phil again and it was really interesting he made us get into groups and do a a task about the film "Made in Dagenham"- Regional Launch, we had to discuss in our groups in about 15 minutes how we would arrange everything and I think it was a really good exercise to test ourselves to thinking logically and to research under pressure and come out with solutions very quickly.

Lecture: Jim Shorthose 26/10/10

Yesterday I had a lecture by Jim Shorthose and I found this lecture even more confusing than the last, I do not understand how he is helping us with the essay. I try to listen to understand how he could help me benefit with my essay but I just do not understand, I feel the same with his books!

I have also started watching another Alfred Hitchcock film called TOPAZ, I have watched nearly half of it when I finish the other half hopefully tomorrow I will post my notes on here.

Danny's Lecture: The Sound recording Process

• This lecture we talked about what was required: location, personnel, equipment.
• Process- agree agenda
• Guide Track: got to have a start point, start with a lead break to start a song.
• Plan timing and Session Musicians
• Film- Sliding doors?
• Rough Mix
• Re-record if needed
• Final working mix
• Approval
• Final Mix
• Mastering

Deborah's Lecture: Researching and Organising your shoot

• This lecture we talked about research to be done i.e. people and resources, organising a shoot and design.
• Shooting Schedule- about money.
• Floor Plans
• Forms and information needed to shoot: Location release, Talent release: permission for actors and copyright permissions.
• Deborah gave us a bunch of sheets about film and video continuity notes, shooting schedule and decibelle productions, which I will have a proper read through tomorrow.

Phil Nodding's Lecture: Guest Lecturer on Developing Networks

Today I found this lecture very useful and interesting

• Phil talked about what he has done so far in his career, he gave us some tips on how to help us get a career, he told us about some events and when there on. I found this was extremely interesting and helped me realise a lot about what is expected.

Sonny's Friend's Basement

"The Birds" by Alfred Hitchcock

I have to admit that I did not find this film that interesting at all, I think the whole plot is quite weak and that it seems rather strange to make a story about "The Birds".

• Melanie Daniels who lives in San Francisco went to pick up a Mynan bird from a pet store.
• Mitchell Brenner a criminal lawyer knows Miss Daniels does not work at the pet shop but acts as if she does and asks about a bird he s interested in buying (love birds), he then gives in and says he knew she didnt work there and that she met her in court but Miss Daniels disagrees about ever meeting him before.
• After Mr Brenner left the shop, Miss Daniels wrote his license plate down and rung a friend to get some more information on him i.e where he lives and his full name.
• Miss Daniels ordered two love birds for him and went to deliver them as a surprise but to her dismay he was not there and a neighbour mentioned he goes to Bodega Bay every weekend.
• So Melanie drove up to Bodega Bay and stopped at a shop to ask where Mr. Brenner lives and what was his little girls name, she also asked if there was a different route she could drive as she wanted it to be a surprise, the man mentioned she could go to see Miss Annie Hayworth the school teacher and he could hire her a boat, so Melanie went to see Annie and she said her name was Cathy, she then came back and the man had hired her a boat.
• Melanie sailed over to the house and ran into the house when no one was there looking and left the birds and a card as a surprise, she ran back to the boat and sailed off and hide as Mr. Brenner went into the house saw the surprise and came running out looking for whom ever did it, he spotted her and got in his car to meet Melanie at the other side of the bay.
• Unfortunately as Melanie was sailing over a gull hit her on the head causing her to bleed quite a bit and feel dizzy, Mr Brenner helped her.
• Mr Mitch Brenner invited her to dinner for coming to all that trouble to drop the birds off, Mitch introduced Melanie to her mother Lydia whom did not seem keen on her, at the end of the evening Mitch insulted her about her wild days and she left in a huff!
• Lydia called Mr Brinkmeyers about the chickens she had bought as they won't seem to eat anything, he mentioned that Dan Fawsett's chickens wont eat either- maybe there ill.
• Melanie mentions she s staying with Annie who she went to school with but she was lying as she didn't want Mitch to know she came up just for him.
• Annie lets Melanie stay for the night and talks about Lydia as Annie moved to Bodega Bay for Mitch as they were an item but his father died 4 years ago and things went down from there it was too much. She mentioned that Lydia is afraid of losing her son and that he ll find love somewhere else, she does not want to be alone. Then a loud bang happens on Annie's door a seagull was dead on her porch on a full moon.
• Cathy loves Melanie so much for giving her the birds and wants her to come to her surprise birthday party.
• Lydia is un-keen on Melanie as she has been in her father's paper a lot about wild things and worries about Mitch and what he wants.
• Mitch called Melanie later on at Annies to apologise and begging her to come to Cathy's birthday party, she attends the part and Mitch and Melanie go to the top of a hill and talk and Melanie gets upset about her mother as Mitch has a mother who really cares , saying " my mother left me when I was 11 for a hotel man", Mitch apologises and they walk back down to the party but sadly another attack happens but the seagulls attack everyone, Mitch tries to get all the children in, after checking everyone they seem fine just a few scratched and cuts.
• After the party and Melanie stays for tea a sworm of birds come down the chimmy and attack Lydia, Cathy, Mitch and Melanie.
• The next morning Lydia goes to see Dan Fawsett about his chickens and to drop Cathy off to her dismay Lydia finds Mr Fawsett dead with the windows all broken in his house, dead birds everywhere and his eyes had been eaten.
• Later on Lydia was in such a distress, Mitch goes to see the detectives from Santa Rosa to give a statement. Lydia gets very upset when she realises Mitch has gone to Mr Fawsett and Melanie tries to help her by bringing her tea and saying she ll go pick Cathy up from school as she s worried about her.
• Sparrows and Seagulls surround the school and the children have to run all the way home being attacked.
• Mitch and Melanie go into a Mr Carter s cafe to call her father to let people know what is going on, a lady called Mrs Bundy says Ornithology is her avocation that that " Birds are not aggressive creatures miss, they bring beauty into the world, it is man kind rather who insists upon making it difficult for life to exist upon the planet".
• A man in the cafe shouts out "ITS THE END OF THE WORLD- EZEKIEL CHAPTER 6", a woman then talks about another chapter called ISARAH chapter 5.
• A man called Mr Shole and Melanie imply there is a war but Mrs Bunday says "why would birds attack now 140 million years ago they were here, why would they go against humanity now". A woman in the cafe gets stressed and says could people lower there voices as its scaring the children.
• Mrs Bunday says "there are 8,650 species today, 5,750,000,000 birds live in the United States and the 5 continents contain 100 billion birds each, birds of different species do not flock together".
• The birds attack again as a man is filling his car with petrol causing him to be knocked out and the petrol to leak all over the floor, a man lights a cigar and its too late for the people to say anything they did shout over but an explosion had happened in seconds.
• Everyone panicked and ran off, Melanie trapped herself in a telephone box, most people managed to get back into the cafe, the woman who asked people to keep it down as its scaring the children then starts blaming Melanie saying " this all started when you got here, you're evil", Melanie slaps her and she stops.
• Mitch and Melanie go to find Cathy but Annie is dead on her porch, they get Cathy from the house and go home, Mitch boards the house up as much as possible but the birds attack again and he hurts his arm.
• Mitch puts the radio on and they only mentions there s been bird attacks but not that any help was coming! Mitch was so angry.
• Melanie hears a fluttering noise, she does not want to wake anyone and goes up stairs, she opens a door where the roof had been eaten away and the birds attack her, Mitch and Lydia find her nearly dead and say they need to take her to a hospital
• Mitch goes to Melanie s car to see if theres any news on the radio, he goes very quickly as its covered with birds.
• Mitch manages to get Melanie, Lydia and Cathy in the car with the love birds and Melanie grabs Lydia tightly and looks at her like a mother and Lydia accepts.

MALac: That's a Wrap

Today myself and the team met up at my house at 9am to film, however we did not start out to a good start we did not start filming till about 11ish as we realised some parts of the equipment were missing or not working, our tripod was missing the part that allows you to move the camera around. Our chip in the camera would not work, luckily I had a 4MB chip from my camera that we managed to use, we were also missing the gun shot for the boom stick and missing the clips to put the gels up. So after going a bit back and forth we managed to start filming.

Our actor/actress were really good and enthusiastic and really did the role proud, we manages to wrapped up at about 7ish so as you can imagine it has been a long day but we re glad that at the end of it everything went well and we have a lot of footage and different angles to work with. Fingers crossed when we look at the footage on Thursday we will be really happy with the work we have done, as I feel we did a really great job and nothing more could have been done!

I will be posting some pictures of all of us working when the Alex gets a chance to load them as we used his camera.

Well done team!

Context 2: Work Experience Submission Essay

Today I have been working all day on my essay, I feel I have put things into perspective and I am starting to get an understanding of what is expected of me.

The networks I will be following over the next few months will be to do with the advertising industry you see on the televisions and this is where I would like to take my degree to.

As a part of my research I have made a list of the top adverts I am currently interested in, I have found out on most of them the product name, name of the company that makes the product and the name of the company that makes the advertisement. I have also emailed a a lot of the different companies applying for work experience as well as asking questions about the advertisements they have made, hopefully I will get some feedback from them by sometime this up and coming week.

MALac Story Board

MALac

Today we had to have everything prepared to start filming on Monday, we had a slight problem though our Director was missing and unfortunately we had to appoint the role to someone else that person being Alex.

We also came round to my basement today to take better pictures to put on our blogs, which I will post sometime next week.

We decided that our Genre was going to be a mix of Thriller and Mystery Drama.

The Location is going to be at my house in my basement.

We have our actors a woman from Vyte and a man from Alex, we feel we did not need the 2nd man actor.

Props: We have arranged that we already have a chair in the basement, Alex is sorting out the chains for the character's hands and little bits about the character too and Daniel is sorting out the table.

We have already booked our equipment to collect on Monday at 9.30, we plan to be filming all day and hopefully get everything done if not we will continue after lessons on tuesday.

We went through all our different 9 shots and Vyte will be drawing up a storyboard which I will then post on here.

Also Daniel is sorting out the Risk assessment forms.

Here is our new proposal/treatment as we have changed quite a few ideas to the first treatment and proposal you saw.

Malac, a short film that depicts the darkest depths of a demented heart. In a panicked state and caught in an un-compromised position, he finds himself trapped in the midst of a dark, cold room. She a psychotic and crazed woman is out for an act of revenge but for what reason? With the incandescent Malac reflecting her malicious glee stricken face, she reveals the very thing which will ultimately cause his inevitable demise.

A pan around stolen items of his, it instantly will become clear this person is a stalker. A blur as he slowly comes to and realises the situation he's in, he notices his items scattered around the room leaving the impression he's been stalked.

Jools seminar 14th and 15th October

Designing for the Screen

This seminar we talked about the 7 visual components and I was quite impressed with myself as I had read the first chapter of The Visual Story book by Bruce Block the day before so I had a heads up on what Jools was discussing, I plan to continue on with the book chapter at a time and updating my blog about what I will be learning from it, hopefully I ll be on the right track for next weeks lessons.

15th Lecture by Jim Shorthouse

Today we had a lecture from Jim Shorthouse, to be quite honest though after the hour I did not feel I learnt that much, I got to grips with some of the things he was explaining but most of it was very confusing. I did get a book from him called Soul Food, and Music which is suppose to lead on from Fish, Horses and other Animals, but apparently it won't help with the essay so I think I ll have a flick through but not read it properly as need to read the Fish, Horses and other Animals first to get more of a start on this Context 2 Essay!

Marnie by Alfred Hitchcock

• I found this film very interesting, I wanted to keep watching to understand more, however I did find some parts of the film odd and confusing but everything came into place at the end.

• Marnie Holland had stolen $9,967 dollars from where she worked.
• She had a bunch of different identities ranging from Mary Taylor to Margaret Edgar to Martha Heilbron.
• After stealing the money where she had worked, she packed 2 suitcases and placed one in a train stations locker and put the key down the drain.
• She went to a new town and dyed her hair from black to blonde.
• Marnie applied for a new job at Rutland & Co, a man called Mark recognises her from her last job, but decides to give her a test run at the job.
• Marnie in her spare time loves to ride her black horse called Foreyo.
• Mark the owner of Rutland & Co discovered that Marnie had stolen Lisa's key and stole money out of the safe.
• However Mark ends up taking her for a meal, he says you have two choices either I can turn you into the police or you marry me.
• Marnie marries Mark even though she did not want to, she hates to be handled by any men.
• Marnie has these nightmares about her muma being hurt and seeing the colour red.
• Mark and Marnie have a house party, however the Strutts were invited who Marnie had previously stolen from, he admits he recognises her but she keep saying no you don't as she was worried that she would go to jail.
• Mark confronts Marie about how many times she's stolen, she admits she has done 5 jobs in the last 5 years stealing over $50,000 dollars from 5 different towns ranging from Buffalo, Detroit, New Jersey, New York, Elizabeth.
• Mark explains to Marnie she has 2 options, coming clean and possibly not getting a jail sentence or Mark offers to pay everything she has stolen however there might be a possibly jail sentence.
• Marnie goes on a horse hunt with Mark's family (sister, father & friends) and sees the colour red and rides off jumping over fences however her horse gets stuck on a wall and she shoots Foreyo as he's in pain. She takes the same gun to Mark's work place and tries to steal from him again, however Mark finds her.
• Mark decides to take her to her mothers to get some answers on why Marnie is so sick, to remind her of what happened that night thats haunted her all these years not knowing what really happened.
• Marnie's mother insists to not remind her as she thought it was a message from the God's that her memory that night disappeared.
• Marnie begins to remember that a sailor was round with her mother and starting kissing Marnie as she was afraid of the lighting. Her mother starts hitting him trying to get him off of Marnie and Marnie tries to help her mother but accidentally ends up killing the sailor. When it came to the police Marnie's mother took the blame to protect her daughter.

Directing Film Techniques and Aesthetics by Michael Rabiger

This book will prepare me for "the methods, though processes, feelings and judgements that a director must use throughout the fascinating experience of creating a film".

The Visual Story: Seeing the Structure of Film, TV and New Media by Bruce Block

• Bruce wanted to "make visual structure easy to use and bring the class and visual theory into the present, make it practical, and link it with story structure".

• Chapter 1- The Visual Components

"The basic visual components are space, line, shape, tone, colour, movement and rhythm", all of these are found in every picture we see.

" Actors, locations, props, costumes, and scenery are made up of visual components".

"A visual component communicates moods, emotions, ideas, and, most importantly, gives visual structure to what we're watching".

SPACE: The space in front of the camera whilst shooting, the difference between the actual space we shot and the same space as it shows on a screen and also the characteristics of the screen where we view our pictures.

LINE: Line is non- existent, it is a perceptual fact, it only exists in our minds, line is the evidence of other visual components that allow us to perceive lines, however they are not real.

SHAPE: Shapes go hand in hand as all shapes appear to be constructed from lines, the shape of an object appears when we lower the object to a silhouette.

TONE: which is black and white and the grey scale, tone is dealt with visually when working in black and white, however we have to consider tone when we use colour also as tone is a component of colour.

COLOUR: "One of the most powerful visual components is also the most misunderstood".

MOVEMENT: Although many great films have been made without real movement(i.e using still pictures), we usually rely on movement as a key part in pictures. As we know movement is the component that attracts an audience's eye, it plays a huge role in visual structure.

RHYTHM: There is not only rhythm we can hear but also we can see, you can find rhythm in nonmoving objects and moving objects, rhythm is also used in editing.

'The purpose of this book is to enable you to understand and use visual structure so that you can make better pictures".

THE SCREEN: Refers to the 2-dimensional screens we watch pictures, which include television, computer screens, movie screens, the proscenium of a theatre stage, canvases in museums, pictures in books, magazines, all of these I have mentioned flat, 2-dimensional surfaces are screens.

REAL WORLD/ SCREEN WORLD: "The real world is the environment we live in" which is the 3-dimensional world we inhabit. "The Screen world is created by images on screen". They both sometimes follow the same visual rules.

FOREGROUND, MIDGROUND, AND BACKGROUND: FG- objects close to the camera/viewer, MG- objects that are further away from the camera/viewer and BG- objects that are the farthest away from the camera/ viewer.

VISUAL PROGRESSION: Progression starts as one thing and changes to something else, so its like something getting more complex, like it growing, for example, " A story can have a progression as a character learns and grows".

THE PICTURE PLANE: When anything is discussed in the screen world, there will always be a frame lines surround it to create a "picture plane".

" The picture plane is the "window" within which the picture will exist", "every screen is a picture plane", whether is be a computer screen or a motion picture. The frame lines show height and width of the window or screen, of course the proportions of different screens depend on what type of screen your using.

The picture plane of a television is the edges of a screen, even when you put your hands together up in front of your eye to frame something is a picture plane.

Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock

I found this film quite intriguing and to be honest a bit cringey and sick, it was very interesting but made me feel very cautious. I made a few notes on the film and here they are:

• A lady called Marion Crane has decided to run away with $40,000 dollars, which she was suppose to put in the bank for her boss, whom s company is retail, Marion had been working for this man for over 10 years so there was no reason to not trust her.
• Marion decided to exchange her car, as she got pulled over when driving to have a nap and a police man came and checked if she was ok, giving her the impression she was being followed.
• Marion stops at Bates Motel- cabin 1 out of 12 to have a nights rest, Norman Bates the son's owner welcomes her and offers to have dinner together. However Norman's mother argues about bringing a stranger dinner but he does so anyway. They eat in the parler where the room is surrounded by stuffed birds.
• Norman explains that his hobby is to stuff creatures but mainly birds as they are "passive to begin with", he explains that its a cheap hobby you just need needles, thread, saw dust and the chemicals are the only pricey part, however he says a hobby is meant to pass time not fill it.
• Marion asks about what else he does, does he have friends or go out, he explains his mother is sick and he looks after her and that a "boy's best friend is his mother".
• Norman starts to ramble on about "everyone is in private traps, which clamps them in, no one can get out", he mentions he was born in a trap so he doesn't mind but he does?
• Norman's dad died a while ago and his mother had a lover, which made him feel replaced, he says, "a son is a poor substitute for a lover", Norman was raised by his mother alone, but her new lover influenced her to build the cabins, however he sadly died also.
• After Norman settled Marion in she goes for a shower, Norman spies through a peep hole to see what she is doing.
• Marion was attacked by a woman and stabbed repeatedly causing her death. Norman finds her and cleans the bathroom and wraps here in the broken shower curtain and puts her in her car boot and puts her belongings with her and drives the car into a lake.
• Marion's sister Lyla who was away for the weekend goes to see Sam, whom is Marion's boyfriend, to ask where she was and that she can help her get out of the mess she's in with stealing $40,000 dollars. A private investigator walks in asking questions about Marion who has been missing for a couple of days. Arbagas the investigator goes to the Bates Motel to see what 's going on and he wanted to talk to Norman's mother but Norman insisted that she was too ill to talk. Sadly he gets attacked and stabbed repeatedly by a woman and dies, leaving Sam and Lyla waiting for his call on some news about Marion.
• Sam and Lyla go to see the deputy Sheriff of the town in Alchambers, the deputy Sheriff's wife explains that Norman's mother has been dead for 10 years, she helped Norman pick out the dress she was buried in, she was buried with her lover. However she apparently poisoned him for being married and they were both found dead in bed together.
• Norman knows that now Marion is dead causing the Investigator to come and now he's dead someone else will come looking, so he convinces his mother to hide in the fruit cellar.
• Sam and Lyla go to bates Motel pretending to be married couple to get some answers, Sam distracts Bates as Lyla goes to look around the house as they only found a piece of torn up paper with the figures $40,000 dollars on so they know Marion was there.
• Norman knocks Sam out as he realises where is Lyla who sam said was taking a nap doesn't believe him. Lyla finds an old woman in the fruit cellar however it is the skeleton of Norman's mother and that a woman who comes in to kill Lyla is Norman dressed as his mother! Sam stops him and they are both safe, Norman is taken in by the police and questioned.
• They come to the conclusion that Norman's brain is half him and half his mother, that Norman killed his mother and poisoned her lover and that he was dangerously disturbed since his father died. His mother was clingy and because the lover replaced him so he felt, he killed them, it pushed him over board, he stole her corpse and the real coffin has no body it in, he has 2 personalities, he wanted her there with him.
• The man at the police department explains that if Norman had a strong attraction for a woman like he did with Marion, the mother side of him would go wild, it would make the mother side want to kill her.
• There's an illusion of his mother being alive, hence him dressing like her and using her voice, but now he believes the battle is over and the dominant personality won.
• The last thing you hear from Norman's mind is his mother saying, " I'll show them what I am".
• Which makes me think is the mother letting her son take the blame for everything!?

MALac

Today I met up with my group and we discussed our roles, our proposal and our treatment.

Here are a few notes we made:

• Revenge- Framed
• Basement- Shafts of light
• Mystery- Don't see Characters
• Torture- Long time- Exhausted
• Housewife gone mad- mean "itch"
• Is he innocent or not (sympathy and empathy)
• Shadows- not revealed
• Horror- Thriller

We decided that the following people took these roles:

Sonny: Director and runner

Daniel: Producer and sound

Kieron: Editor and Lighting

Alex: Photographer, camera and location manager

Vyte: Camera

Myself: Camera

We decided to possibly have 2 different cameras but with 3 people helping out to get a variety of angles and possibilities.

We decided on 3 different locations that all have basements, one is my house, another is Sonny's friends house and the last is Alex's old house. I went down into my basement and took some pictures to give us an idea of if it would work or not and I think it could be really good for what we want to do.

Here are a few of the pictures I took:

Proposal

When a demoralised, disorientated man finds himself in a hostage situation, a world of confusion begins; his where abouts is unknown as he struggles to remember how he got there. A twisted woman holds the key to his future, is he innocent?

Treatment 1

He is tied up to a chair, the room is dark and the air is moist, there is hardly any light you cannot see much. He is sweating a bit. A silhouette of a woman walks in; all you hear are her foot steps. The man face looks rugged and confused of where and why he is here. She says in a calm and polite term “are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink”, the camera focuses on her face as she smiles and she says “it’s never too late to change your mind”. Focus’s on his face, he looks frightened and he says “I swear. I swear. please. Stop, Please? The woman brings a case in front of her; the shot is of her doing this, she says “sush. be quiet. quiet, It will no longer be necessary to lie. He says “I swear…”. She says whist opening the case “shush, shush, I have here a MALac. God it’s beautiful. He says “Don’t. Don’t. I swear. She says in a pleased voice “Malacs. Now no more shall we part on this path of truth we find ourselves on. Opening the case, its glowing sheen plays on her face. She says “pain, enlighting truth. This is what MALac brings. Shall we continue? She removes the MALac and shutting the case steps forward towards the man, the man turns his head away from the MALac. Man steps out of the shadows and forces he’s head towards the MALac. He screams.

The End

Family Plot by Alfred Hitchcock

I hired this film from the library to have a look at some Alfred Hitchock films. I found this film as an overall very interesting and I would say its a definitely a must watch. I made some notes when watching it and here s what I got:

• This old lady saw a psychic called Blanch Tyler to talk about her dead sister, she wants her dead sisters help to find her son she made her give up 40 years ago.
• This old lady is willing to pay Blanch $10,000 dollars to try find the boy and reunite him to his real family.
• George whom is Blanch's boyfriend pretends to be from a law firm to get information out of blanch's clients so that she can pretend to be a psychic. George however actually is a cab driver who works for central cab.
• Trader- is a woman in a blonde wig but is actually brunette, whom does not talk at all when trading for diamonds, after one trading she went in a helicopter and was dropped in a golf course.
• Three people died in 1950 in a fire on the same day all being from the same family called Shoebridge, however 2 have one headstone which is quite old and the other 1 called Edward Shoebridge had a new headstone which doesn't make sense for all the people who died on the same day.
• As the film goes on I find out that Edward's headstone was made in 1965 but he died in 1950, George goes to find if he has a death certificate but it was declined, which makes us aware that he faked him own death.
• Edward Shoebridge actually turns out to be Arthur Adams and Joseph (Malony) is his wing man who trapped his parents in the house and made it go up in flames, which is how he faked him own death.
• Arthur Adams and his wife are Jewellery theifs and there is a big random for them, they are very clever, they kidnap people and keep them in a secret place in their house, one person they take is BIshop Wood who actually baptised Arthur as a baby, they take there victims by using an injection from the dentist Arthur goes to.
• Arthur Adams thinks George and Blanch are after him as he thinks they know he s a jewellery thief but actually Blanch wants to tell him this old lady wants to find her nephew to give him all her inheritance. So Arthur sends Malony his wing man to try and kill them however he ends up dying himself.
• Arthur's wife comes into their jewellery shop to tell him about there next trade but makes it look out like she buying something and she get's very distressed when Arthur says share and share alike? this bit confuses me as I get the impression Arthur's wife does not want to trade anymore but Arthur does!
• At the end Blanch goes to find this Arthur and is kidnapped in Arthur's house and George manages to find her, Blanch pretends to be unconscious and they manage to trap Arthur and his wife in there secret room. Then Blanch manages to find one of the diamonds by being an actual psychic, george rings the police and Blanch winks! this part confuses me on is she actually a psychic, as the whole film she pretends to be as George gets the information from people so it looks like she is an actual psychic, then at the end she manages to find a diamond with no help!

Rundance

Today I met up with the Rundance group where they were celebrating world metal health day, where they are performing from 10am-10pm on today being the 10/10/10.

However I did not manage to stay for the whole event, I met them at 10am at the Bandstand arboretum, then I went at 11am to the Top of the shops, Contemporary and then at 11.30 to the Leaf stem, St Peter's Church. They still have 7 more locations to go! Good Luck to them!

This was a very weird, interesting experience, it was a great experience watching what the Rundance group were trying to do, quite a few people joined in and it was quite good fun! As a result i've been invited to a fashion show this month to go and take some footage again. It was also a great opportunity to practice using the panasonic camera and tripod.

Lecture 8th October

Generating Ideas

In this lecture we discussed When is enough enough?

• Capturing- For me is to think about it in my head for a moment and to write it down, maybe though I should try to draw my idea instead.
• Challenging- Giving ourselves tough problem to solve- CHALLENGE YOURSELF!
• Broadening- The more diverse your knowledge- BOOST YOUR CREATIVITY!
• Surrounding- physical/social environments, more interesting and diverse the things and the people around you, the more interesting your own ideas become.
• Stages- Concept- Basic outline of story
• Treatment/ Proposal
• Screenplay/ Shooting Script
• Concept Task- write down the outline for a recent film that you've seen: The last film I saw was The Invention of Lying (Ricky Gervais) " A comedy set in a world where no one has ever lied, until a writer seizes the opportunity for personal gain".
• Treatment- Scene by scene in present tense of how films unfold, basic actions and plot structures, generally equates to a paragraph for each major dramatic event, not fully developed scenes with dialogue, precise settings or actions, short film treatment might by 2/3 pages long.
• Dramatic event= narrative beat- moves the story on.
• Proposal- is your opportunity to convince a 3rd party that your film is worth making.
• What a proposal should do: Be Clear, Clarify, Convince, Organised, Professional, Imaginative.
• Start with an overview paragraph.
• EPG- electronic programme.
• Next few paragraphs- outline how you expect your story to unfold.
• Brief summary- a bit about you, reasons for doing your story.
• Screenplay- written as it unfolds to an audience.
• Screenplay Elements- 6- Title, Scene headings, Stage directions, Dialogue, Character cues, Personal Direction.

I have also subscribed to Jurgen Wolff, Creative Brainstorming e Letter, June 2008, hopefully this will be helpful.

I took out the Voice and Vision book by George Racz, which I will be looking at over the weekend.

I took out The Film Director's Intuition: Script analysis and rehearsal Techniques by Judith Weston, which I will be looking at over the weekend.

I have also taken out 3 films from the library by Alfred Hitchcock called Psycho, "Marnie" and Family Plot, which I hope to watch in the next week and write about them on here and then get some different ones out as there's about 15 dvds.

I have read through the 3 scripts called Tea, Feel and Train.

Tea: This script I found was very peculiar, I get the understanding that it is about a couple having a disagreement and the woman would not try something different out that the man wanted her to.

Feel: This script I found very hard to understand, it seems to showing a champion who only has till the end of the week to live

Train: I also found this script even harder to get a grip of, to me it sounds like a woman has this man wrapped around her finger and he will do anything and everything for her.

Deborah's Seminar 8th October

In this seminar we were kept in the same groups as before and were given a script called MALac, we sat down as a group and did a brainstorm and this is as far as we got. We came to the conclusion of wanting to film in a basement/cellar, that there are 3 characters- 1 woman and 2 men. We want to show that the woman is a psychotic house-wife who wants revenge, who has lost the plot and been empowered. With the man we want to show one of them looking rough, clothes are ripped, the other man we haven't really discussed. With the MALac being the object we think the woman is proud of it but we haven't discussed what it would be. We are meeting up as a group on monday to discuss more and to sort out the location and characters.

Danny's Seminar 8th October

This seminar was really useful, we went through the brief:

• 2000 words- - + 5%
• Veranda- font 12
• Find companies you want to network with
• Research companies
• File name must be Network_charlottcochrane.doc
• Look at the learning outcomes
• Introduction - Conclusion is in the word count, anything before or after does not count in the word count
• Abstract- short to the point
• Map of my network- memory map- spider diagram
• Appendices- everything you'e used
• Harvard Referencing