P1. Misfits

Purpose of Dialogue and its Effect

The purpose of dialogue in misfits is to inform the audience of what is taking place in the scene, the characters personalities, accents, tone, Volume and intentions. The dialogue is extremely important at this point, as it is the first scene, which should inform the audience about what the show is about, set the scene, begin the narrative and also grip them so they continue watching.

From this first scene, we can already tell that the show is aimed at a younger audience, as most of the characters are young offenders, and have stereotypes that can relate to a younger age and our current generation. We can also tell that the show is comedic, as a lot of the dialogue is humorous in ways we can relate to.

The first character I'm going to be analyzing is Nathan.

The first thing we notice about Nathan when he first speak is his accent, which is Irish; this is effective as we now know that he's not based in the UK and is away from home, which makes us realize that the group is made up of a range of different characters from separate background, class and ethnicity's. Nathan speaks in a confident, acerbic, playful and sarcastic tone and in a loud and clear volume; this already tells us a lot about the character, and that his personality  is indeed sarcastic and careless. Through out the scene Nathan is the character who talks the most, and Nathan's first line of dialogue is "Yeah but what if they're right" answering back to their instructor about people thinking they're 'scum' this already tells us that the character is free-willed, insensitive and confident, as he was the first person willing to speak up, and interrupts the man. Lastly Nathan is shown to be humorous, making sarcastic jokes through out the sequence; his stereotype could be the joker of the group.His need for attention could tell us that he came from a background where he lacked it, and maybe this also links in with why he left home. 

Simon is the complete opposite to Nathan when it comes to confidence, as although he doesn't speak a word in the entire scene, this tells us a lot about his personality. It tells us that he is either shy and instead of being an attention seeker like Nathan, he is trying to avoid the spot light, or it tells us he's not bothered, obnoxious or in a bad position to be making the effort to chat to others. This character could have the stereotype of being the shy/reserved guy in the group, and a social outcast. 

Gary is also extremely blunt and insensitive. His first line is "You lookin' to get stabbed?" this tells us that the character considers himself to be 'hard' and intimidating, and isn't afraid to come across this way. It also shows us that the character speaks his mind, and takes offence easily. Although the character has unapproachable characteristics, the tone of his voice is quite calm and he speaks relatively quietly, although speaks in a threatening manor. The only time he speaks is when he feels the need too, so in this case to defend himself, otherwise he seems similar to Simon in the fact he cant be bothered. He could have the stereotype of being the 'gangster' of the group.

Alisha is firstly shown to be rude and careless, as her first line is "Hey, doing my community service, boring as fuck"  when she interrupts the instructor to answer her phone, knowingly insulting him. Later on, she then goes on to saying "My probation worker... don't be disgusting" and although we cant hear the other end of the phone call, we can guess what the friend implied, and by this can tell she has a bit of a tarty reputation. The tone of her voice is also quite sarcastic at points, similar to Nathan, although it isn't as constant. Alisha could be stereotyped as the typical 'slut' of the group. 

Curtis is also quite quiet compared to the others although not as much as Simon. He is shown to be honest, and thinks he is better then the group by saying "Can I move to a different group, dis isn't gunna work for me." this shows that he doesn't think he should be there, and is trying not to come across as bad the other group members. He is shown to speak in a very mono-toned voice, which is quite soft in comparison to the other characters, maybe this is also a sign that he isn't as intimidating as them.

Kelly is shown to take offence easily, and will confidently share her  opinions  and views on things. This is shown when she says "Erm, what makes ya think you're betta then ous?" Kelly has the stereotype of being a typical chav, which is shown in her accent, the way she speaks, and as well as dialogue empathized by her side pony tail and large hooped earrings. She has the loudest voice in the group, and speaks in a very sharp and assertive tone. 

The one thing the characters all have in common, is that they're all in the same situation (having to do community service to gain redemption from their crimes) and this is empathized by the orange jumpsuits they're all wearing, and despite there differences they have the same problem. 

P1. Misfits

List of Visual Effects found in Misfits Season 1 Episode 1:

Sped up cloud: 4:30
Rocks falling from sky: 5:30
Lightning: 6:10
Green screen: 6:10
Slow motion 6:10
Lightning in eye: 6:32
Head shaking: 17:30
Chair smashing?: 19:11
Sped up shaking: 21:56
Slow motion: 30:06
Flash back projected in eye, (masking?): 30:12

P1. Industrial Light and Magic

Industrial Light and Magic

Industrial light and magic was first founded in 1975 by George Lucas, and was especially set up to create visual effects for his successful film Star Wars. At the time it was the first facility which focused only on visual effects, but afterwards many other post-production and special effect warehouses were set up. Now ILM houses are set up in San Francisco and Singapore, and concentrates on helping motion picture, commercial production and attraction industry; and have done visual effects for around 300 feature films, helping out on 10 of the top 15 box office films.


ILM focuses on:

- traditional arts of blue screen photography
- matte painting
- model construction
- motion controlled cameras
- computer graphics
-  digital imaging
- digital compositing
- morphing
- simulations
- enveloping
- film input scanning
-wire removal
- motion control
- imo cap
- EXR file format

ILM has done visual effects for large box office films such as:

- Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest
- Jurassic Park
- Star wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace
- The Abyss
- Terminator 2: Judgement Day
- Death Becomes Her
- The Mask
- Twister
- The Perfect Storm

Projects at ILM are a combination of concept design, computer graphics effects, models and miniatures, digital environments and state-of-the-art animation. For 30 years the ILM has been running, and the workers there have PhDs specialising in things such as software engineering, traditional animation, expert model making and texture art.   

P1. Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro

In Adobe Premiere Pro when you want to adjust the saturation or brightness of a clip you can use the Vector scope. This tool allows you to see the chrominance levels of your film. The saturation of your clip is measured from the centre of the circle outward. If you want a black and white image to be produced, the wheel will only have a dot in the centre of the circle, where as if the colour is away from the centre, the further it is the more vibrant the colours are. If you want a particular colour or hue for your film clip, you can adjust the direction/angle of the pattern.


 The YC waveform is a graph displaying signal intensity in the film. The vertical axis is the signal intensity in units and the horizontal axis is the video image. With the YC wave form you can adjust the brightness of the clip and displays both chrominance and luminance. The luminance information appears as a green wave form and the brighter something is the brighter/stronger the green wave forms are. These brighter wave forms appear close to the top, where as darker wave forms appear near the bottom.

RGB Parade is a graph which also display wave forms, but specific waveforms representing the colours red, blue and green, which are the channels. The purpose of this graph is so you can see the colours that are showing most in your clip, and helps you to change and play around with them. The levels of the colours are measured proportionately to each other from a scale of 0 to 100.

In Adobe Premiere Pro, we experimented with editing a clip, by using Jarle's Pre-sets, the three images here are examples of some of the pre-sets that where available to use. The first one is Summer Sepia, the second is Bleach and the third is Bypass 1. 

P1. Sequence

Napoleon Dynamite Sequence

The challenge of this project was to recreate a sequence from the film Napoleon Dynamite, mirroring Munn Powell's cinematography but using our own resources.

Firstly, we watched the clip, and copied each shot onto a storyboard, naming the shots and writing any relevant information about them underneath. 

If given extra time I would have added more detail to each of the shots, including shading so it's made more clear where the lighting is. I should have also gone over each image with darker lines so they are clearer to see when scanned in. What worked well where the proportions, as the shots I drew on my story board matched the stills from the original footage. 

                                          

Once the story board was done, I then began making the shot list, which is where I wrote down each shot and their properties, including the location of the shots, what props would be needed, the shot types, any movement of the characters or shots, and what happens in each shot.  After I had complete these two tasks, we split of into groups of 4 and used our shot lists and story boards as a references to help us frame and produce each shot. 

Working in a team was handy, as when deciding on the location of each shot we shared and considered each other's points, and also shared the responsibilities. We used my documentation as our group decided it was the most finished and descriptive. We faced a few problems during the filming process, firstly, in the locker scenes, the long shot was extremely hard to copy, as the corridors where extremely small so we couldn't move the camera further enough away. Also in some locations -such as the corridors-, students would constantly be walking past, so we had to keep on re-shooting the scene. The locations and props were extremely hard to copy, as some things we didn't have assess too, or weren't positioned in a similar way (such as the office next to the lockers). One last problem we faced was that the tripod we picked was slightly broken, so this made the camera and our frames wonky. 

If we could re-do it, I would have made sure we used a better tripod, as this had a large effect on our cinematography/framing. Also, there were several shots we missed out, so if we had more time, we could have included these. Lastly, we could have paid more attention to the script, as we missed out lots of dialogue, and had the wrong dialogue in some shots. 

When editing our sequence on Adobe Premiere Pro, I named each shot according to its order and take. I also added a description of each shot so I could quickly read what happens in it without having to click on the shot and watch it. Also, on the successful clips I planned to use, I wrote 'best' before them, so I could see or search this word to save the trouble of finding them individually. 

(add footage here) 

P1. Continuity Editing

Continuity Editing 

Continuity Editing is the process in which cutting is used to maintain a clear and continuous narrative by following a sets of 8 rules. The 8 rules consist of the 180 degree rule, the 30 degree rule, Cross-cutting, Match on Action, Eyeline Match, Shot/Reverse Shots, Establishing Shots, and Re-establishing

Shots. 

The 180 degree rule consists of an axis, which is an imaginary line connecting and passing directly through the characters, but most importantly this rule results in the first character being on the left of the screen and the second on the right, if the camera stays on one side of the axis. If the camera crosses this axis, the characters will then swap sides, the first being on the right and the second being on the left; this is why it is important to maintain this rule so you don't confuse the audience. 

Eyeline match is an editing technique used to show the audience what the character is looking at. An example of this is when a sequence will cut from one shot of the character looking of screen, to another shot of the object she is looking at.

Shot/reverse shot or shot/counter shot is a technique where both characters appear to be looking at each other, but are actually not. This works by having one character looking off screen in one direction, and then cropping to another shot of the other character looking in the opposite direction, so to the audience it appears as if they are looking towards each other. 

The 30 degree rule is when the camera should move at least 30 degrees between shots of the same sector. If a jump cut occurs when this rule isn't followed, the audience could focus more on the rough edit then what is actually taking place. 

Cross cutting is an editing process which allows the audience to see two things taking place at once; it is done by cutting one extremely different clip after the other. Cross cutting can cut back and forth between any amount of scenes, not just two, and is also referred to as Parallel Editing. 

Match on action, also known as Cutting on action, is where the scene cuts from one shot of something to another that matches the first shots activity. Match on action shots give the audience the impression that the two scenes are shot in continuous time, although they could have been shot hours apart. 

An Establishing shot is usually shown at the beginning of a sequence, and is used to inform the audience of where the scene is taking place. Re-Establishing shots are used to return to an initial establishing shot in a scene, which act as a reminder to the viewer of the context of the closer shots.

D-Day with MOBAS

Mobas is a large marketing agency based on the outskirts of Cambridge.

The company specializes in helping brand strategy, digital, design and PR services, and offers a complete portfolio of creative and strategic marketing assistance. They offer services to clients such as IBIS, Accor, Bupa, The Cambridge Building Society, TOSHIBA and many more. 

Yesterday, we started of our D-day by listening to a speech and presentation presented by Peter Chaloner, the Digital Director of MOBAS, and Beck Lamont, the Director of PR and Social Media. In this presentation we got an incite of what the company was about, and also learnt what we would be doing through out the day.

Our task for the day was to create a Clothing Brand, and plan to advertise it through a variety of online social networks. For the majority of the day we split into groups of around 5, planning and sharing ideas of how we could advertise our brand. We put these ideas into practise by designing profiles on websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr; also by designing a website, Ipad and Iphone app. Our group based our brand on Retro/Vintage clothing, similar to what you would find in Camden Market or Shoreditch. We spoke in groups and discussed how we could draw our customers in, coming up with ideas such as monthly discounts and offers, and placing stores around locally so everyone could access them (including online shopping). Lastly, we came to the decision that we would promote our clothing by constantly posting on our pages male and female models of all sizes, so people can come across something they like, and feel more confident when buying the clothing.

Once we had finished planning out our marketing strategy, we presented our ideas in front of the MOBAS members, our tutors and peers, and afterwards discussed what would work well, and what would need improving.

On this day, we learnt what companies like MOBAS do, and learnt how we could advertise and promote our own brands through social networking. We also improved our team working skills and confidence by presenting our ideas.

What we could have done differently if given more time was added colour to some of our designs and sketches. Also, we could have come up with a better name, as "Lane 21" sounded a bit like a racing game, and less like a Retro Brand. With hind-sight, we could have named it "Route 21" having a more vintage feel, (i.e Route 66). Also we could have actually created a http address for our site, and presented our Brand idea with more confidence, explaining more of our ideas, and being more enthusiastic about our plan.