Film 4: Ideology

Submarine:
Submarine shows the Film4 ideology as the characters are generally show to look British as the characters in the schools all wear a uniform. The characters also have to deal with typical teenage issues, such as a crush on a girl, sex and broken relationships. The main character is shown to be different, we see a scene where the girl who he has a crush on says that she has proof he may not be "gay"- this shows that he may be picked on at school about his sexuality, as he tries to identify all of his emotions and gain a full understanding of what is going on, and is monitoring the relationship between his parents, that does not concern him.
The setting is in a old small town, near the ocean, we see that the weather is quite cold- a stereotype of Britain, this is also Film4 ideology as this shows verisimilitude in the representation of Britain, the weather could also connote the emotions of the characters, to be quite mysterious and tense.
The story line hints that this school boy is having trouble at home, and is fearful that his parents are going to split, with these mixed emotions about a girl that he likes, the way that he is monitoring his parents relationship is very strange and he is attempting to "fix" their bond.

Four Lions:


The representation of the characters in Four Lions are that they are believers in Islam, but they are extremists, as they have plans to become terrorist bombers. Some of the group seem "clued up" on what they're doing, and the others seem to be roped into the "idea" of becoming suicide bombers as they go to a terrorist training camp- due to peer pressure.
The setting is a busy, city, run down area as we see multiple estate blocks, this shows Film4 ideology as they have shown the worst of Britain to match the actions taking place in the movie.
The type of language they have used is generally British - and a tourist from another country would struggle to understand the references - such as, when they're singing "Dancing in the Moonlight" a iconic song in Britain.
The hints to the story line are that they plan to become suicide bombers, and kill non-believers in Islam, but things don't pan out properly and they all individually die.

Looking For Eric:

The representation of the characters in Looking For Eric are all White/British- this adds to the British social realism- and the main story line is linked to football, a very large and popular sport in Britain, and a football star is one of the main role models in the movie.
The setting of the movie is typical of a Film4 movie as the location is urban, and run down, showing the characters struggle in everyday life.
The hint of the story line would be one man has ruined his life, by pushing away his family, and now he is an out cast, his role model Eric Cantona, Eric's role model- is going to help him turn his life around by fixing broken relationships, and putting him back on the right track. 

Evaluation

Our Brief was to film someone walking across a room, sitting down, and exchanging some dialogue with another character; We had to include the following techniques;


Rule Of Thirds

-180 Degree Rule
-Shot-Reverse-Shot
-Rule Of Thirds
-Match On Action

I think that we had used the 180 Degree rule well as we had not crossed the 180 degree line during, we had used this technique during the conversation between Character A and Character B.
The Shot-Reverse- Shot technique is a cut used to show the viewer something that is not immediately visible, in our composition we had used this in the conversation. The rule of thirds is used to show the audience that the character is keeping eye contact with another character, we had again, used this in the conversation.
 

Match On Action 2

  

Match On Action 1



We also had use the Match-On-Action technique which is when two shots link to keep a flow of consistent movement, such as a door opening, for example in out piece we had a point of view shot of Character A's hand pulling the door, and then we had another shot from behind the gate as he was opening, the gate had to be the same open the same amount as before we had cut-to keep the continuity.

Shot-Reverse-Shot

  During the production stage some of the problems that we had encountered were that we had filmed in a outdoor environment, so keeping the continuity with the sunlight and weather, and shadows from us behind the camera and the camera itself. We had needed a few extra shots that we were unable to film as the weather had turned from sunny, to dark, and wet. Some shots that were a challenge to capture were the point of view shot of Character A opening the gate, also the over the shoulder shot was a challenge as we had to stay synchronised as if we had gone too fast or too slow the shot would not have been successful. If we was to film again I would film the gate shot once again as it was a challenge to work with and also had other people in the background that had spoiled the shot.



Shot that I was unhappy with as there is a leg in the shot.

During post production the challenges that we had faced was putting all the shots together to keep continuity, and perfecting the match-on-action and tightening all the shots out so there was no delay between cuts, a tool that was very useful was the precision editor as it made it possible to make the shots very tight, as it was easy and accurate. If I was to edit once again i would make my piece longer and add more shots, such as a cut away, and add in more cuts to lengthen my composition.

The overall strengths of my piece were that it was continuous and had a flow with no delays between cuts, also i believe that the quality of the shots and the overall editing, and adding in the techniques that were listed to us were done successfully. We had used our imagination as rather than a character walking across a room, they walk from the park gate to outside the school, but display the techniques in the same manner. We had though about how we were going to film each shot during our planning, as we had decided that when filming the conversation we would have one character have the conversation fully from one side of the 180 degree line and have the other character have the conversation and cut using the editing software(iMovie), so that we keep continuity as the level and angle of the shot will not change. The digital technology that we had used was the Apple Mac's using the editing software iMoive - I had never used this software before as this was a upgraded version of the one I had previously used, compared to the older version this was better as it had more features to cut and edit with, and also we could use shots more that once, as on the older version if we had cut a original shot, it was gone.

I had removed a establishing shot as it had no real relevance to my piece as it had panned across from the park to outside the school and i thought that it had no impact or meaning so I had removed it from my composition. I think that one of our weaknesses was the outdoor continuity, as the weather is unpredictable and would make it harder to film extra shots that we may have needed - during our post production I had found that the outdoor environment was very windy and had interfered with the dialogue as while the actors are speaking we hear the wind blowing into the microphone of the camcorder. The digital technology was another weakness as we had less experience in using this version on iMovie so we had not know the full potential of it, such as new features added to it.

The improvements that I would make are that, I would re film certain shots, such as when Character A is opening the gate, and when they are exchanging dialogue I would ensure that we would film when there is as little wind as possible. I would also add extra cuts and shots, as mentioned earlier, a cut away. I would also spend more time editing it as I could learn how to use and find more features on the new version of iMovie. Overall I think that my composition had come out well as it demonstrated all of the shots/techniques on the brief.

Continuity Editing Exercise

The scenario we were told to work to was that a character opens a door , crosse's a room, sits down on a chain opposite another character, with whom she/he changes a couple of lines on dialogue.
The key skills that we had to demonstrate were;

-The Rule of Thirds (Eye line match): Ensuring eyes are on the top horizontal to make sure the two characters are looking at each-other.

-Match on Action: When two parallel actions are mirrored in order to show a strong relationship between two shots.

-Shot-Reverse-Shot: A shot to show the viewer something not immediately visible.

-180 Degree Rule: We use the 180 degree rule to stop confustion for the audience as if we keep the camera on one side during the conversation, Character A would stay on the left and Character B would be on the right,

when we cross the 180 degree line the characters filp, so Character A would flip to the right, and Character B would be on the left. 

I had worked with Muhammad Rahman, Abir Mohammad. I think that we had worked well as a group as we had agreed on our plans/storyboard, and had filmed all of our shots successfully and quickly. Muhammad and Abir had opted themselves to act on camera, with no problems. When we had edited, the shots were easy to use and cut together. Although we had the exact same shots we could make totally different pieces. I thought that the grouping was very successful as we had all worked well together and had not had any disputes as we all kept to our plans.

We had developed our scenario to make it unique by making our Character A walk from the park gate to outisde the school, we had used the gate to demonstrate match-on-action, and used character B to demonstrate shot-reverse-shot, and the rule of third, as character A would ask Character B to get him some concert tickets. To differentiate and make it more exciting. I had added some slow pace romatic music to make it seem as if the two characters are meeting up for other reasons, then you get the shock that they're only meeting up on the means of buying tickets.



My story board was very useful as it was a rough draft of our main compostion, it was the plan of the main piece and when filming came in very handy as we knew exactly what shots we had needed, so that we wasn't unoorganised when editing, and so that we had the exact shots that we had needed. On my composition I had removed my establishing shot as it had no significance to the piece as we would see the same shot with character A walking along it, so it was almost a 'blank duplicate'.