Task 2 - Just Like Heaven Analysis

Romantic Comedies are films with light hearted, humorous plot lines, centered around romantic ideals such as true love is able to overcome any obstacle. Romantic Comedy films are a sub-genre of comedy films as well as romance films. Rom Coms appeal to women and are also known as 'chick flicks' 

The opening of the film "Just Like Heaven" starts with a tilt up to the DreamWorks Logo and then the DreamWorks music starts to play.  

As the opening scene continues the camera pans around the clouds of the DreamWorks title,

where the audience can now see the clouds as part of the film rather than the DreamWorks title. The camera now goes from Heaven to the ground with the titles fading in and out in various soft colours including yellow, green, pink and blue.

The first time we see the protagonist is as the soft lense/focus effect dissolves two cuts of the scene as we see the protagonist (Elizabeth, played by Reece Witherspoon) for the very first time sitting in the garden of Eden. We are shown the clouds as part of the film because it links in with the film title. The soft lens effect creates a dream-like feel and as two shots are dissolved together it gives the audience the impression that Elizabeth has been there for a long period of time.   

As the scene continues we then realise that it is just a dream as she is awoken in a rush back to her busy hospital job. This suggests that she is stressed at work, finding the long days difficult and had started dreaming about the peaceful place she wishes she was at. As this scene is playing, non diagetic, instrumental music is used. 

In another scene is its set up as a stereotypical romantic comedy where the protagonist is sat in a room with her friends, they're all talking about their boyfriends and children and how busy their lives are. Elizabeth is sitting very quietly, almost isolated from the group as she has no boyfriend or children to talk about. A shot reverse shot is used in this showing the process of conversation and every so often there is a shot of Elizabeth, showing how isolated and alone with no input in the conversation. 

                               

Task 2 - Christian Metz. Model of genre development

Christian Metz wrote a book called "Language and Cinema" where he explored the development of genre film and suggested that the genres pass through four phases of existence.

The four phases of existence are:

The experimental

The Classic

The Parody

The Deconstruction

The experimental: helped formalize narrative conventions of the horror film in its earliest phase. Films such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) and Nosferatu (1922)

The classic: the phase of films in which established the narrative convention of the horror genre in its most successful and defining period. Hollywood films such as Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) made my Universal.

The parody: films which have been mimicked by the horror genre in a comical way. Films such as Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein (1948), Carry on Screaming (1968) and Scary Movie (1998)

The deconstruction: films that have taken the generic elements of the horror genre and amalgamated them into varying sub genres. Films such as Se7en (1995), The Sixth Sense (1999) The Blair Witch Project (1998) and Scream (1996)

Task 2 - Analysis of Red Dragon and Se7en

In the opening of Red Dragon and Se7en, there are many similarities and differences between the two.

In Red Dragon, there was a lot of dialogue used as well as eerie music whereas in Se7en the music was more contemporary and sounded like a lot of the sound effects had been mixed together to create the music.

In both of them music was used to build up the tension implying that the film wasn't going to be a happy film making the audience feel like something bad was going to happen.

In both films there are extreme close ups of the article giving the audience an idea of what the film is about. In Red Dragon, there is a use of shot reverse shot, a low angle shot to show priority and an over the shoulder shot to show Hannibal's main features. In se7en, there was no shot reverse shot used as it is pointing down at the same place.

Theres alot of editing used in both films, there are cuts between the shots making it choppy and distorted, just like the main characters minds. In se7en there was alot of superimposing and a lot of jump cuts and the editing wasn't very smooth.The writing at the start of Red Dragon was written in red, this could suggest that it was written in blood, showing the audience that the film is going to be scary.  

Task 1 - Preliminary Task

1. What is the 180 degree rule? A match on action? And eye line match? A shot-reverse-shot? And how did you incorporate them into your final film? /Users/08becnel/Desktop/678px-180_degree_rule-1.svg.png The 180 degree rule is when there is an invisible line between two or more people when the camera has to stay on one side of the line. The 180 degree rule cannot be broken because it would confuse the audience as all of a sudden the characters would have changed position. This rule can only be broken if the audience are shown the movement of the camera from one side of the line to the other. A match on action is where the perspective of the camera changes during a scene and the scene continues to flow. We used this in our film when Beth gave the post-it note to Lauren. This took us a while to complete as we had to make sure that both of the clips would match up together when it came to the editing process. An eye line match is where we are shown a shot of a character looking at something and then cuts to another shot showing exactly what the character sees. A shot-reverse-shot is where there is a clip of two people having a conversation. We are shown one clip of person 1 talking, then another clip of person 2 talking and then a final clip of person 1 talking again. We used this in our film when Beth and Lauren were having a conversation about the ‘note’ found in Beth’s locker. We used a shot reverse shot instead of just having the camera so the audience can see both of their faces as this way it makes it more obvious as to who is talking. 2. How did the filmmaking process go in terms of filming shots from the filming shots from the storyboard and filming around college? The filmmaking process went well as all of the group members have experience in media studies which made the filming easier for the two of us that filmed. We followed our storyboard with minor changes as there weren’t many people around the college when we were filming. We didn’t move around the college very much and staying in one location was useful for us. The only bit of the storyboard that we didn’t follow was the very first clip where we were supposed to show a clip of the weather. The clip was supposed to show how nice the weather was, but on the day of the filming the weather wasn’t as predicted and wouldn’t have linked in with the film. I learnt a few new skills when editing on adobe premiere. The editing worked well as we added background music which created a good atmosphere in our clip and adding sound was fairly simple. We added transitions to make the film flow better which made it look more professional. I feel that the whole editing process went well overall.