Research and Planning

In my group we have researched into a short story by Katherine
Mansfield called 'A Cup of Tea' this is about a rich woman who comes upon a working class girl who asked her for money, the woman takes pity on this girl and invites her home with her. Later the husband arrives home and the woman tells him that she has brought a homeless girl home and the husband says she cant stay, then later changes his mind when he meets her and see how beautiful she is. Beauty is the only thing this girl has over the woman, this woman realises that her husband takes a liking to her and tell her she cant stay any more. The woman is clearly jealous of her beauty. This story is set in the 1920's so we can either stick with this time or make it modern and challenge the genre of this story we are at very early stages of planning but these are the ideas we have come up with.

Here is the story we have read and analysed

Research into the Media Language

The Auteur Theory- n the 1950s, the French magazine Cahiers du Cinema instigated a new way of 'reading' movies, which then became know as the Auteur Theory. It basically stated that the film was a work of art; just like a novel or painting, it was essentially the product of an individual's imagination.

Cinema Verite- a style of documentary filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camera work, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects. It is also known for taking a provocative stance toward its topics.

Avant-Garde Film- "Avant-garde" is a word from the French, meaning "ahead of the crowd." In contemporary English, we'd say it's on the "cutting edge." Avant-garde film makers want to experiment with new ideas, forms, techniques, and expressions--and are often said to be "ahead of their times." Avant-garde films are characterized by a high degree of experimentation--whether it be in manipulation in narrative materials, in highly stylized visual representation, or in radical departures from the norms or conventions current at the time, avant-garde film is always a vehicle for the filmmaker’s expression.

Film Noir- a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s.

The French New Wave- The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French film makers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema.

My Three Favourite Directors

I like a certain type of film which is why I have chosen these directors, I like girlie films and comedy’s and romances, I’m not that into action films or anything like that just because I find it boring. I also love thrillers and horrors but they wouldn't be my first choice to see.

My first director I have chosen is Nick Cassavetes; he's done films such as The Notebook and My Sisters Keeper, which are two of my all time favorite films. These films I loved because they both were about tragic events and the way he chose to tell the story was so clever, I like how he jumps in time from past to present, because it gives you a great insight into the story and doesn't tell the story from start to finish, but starts in the middle and jumps back to the beginning. When I see he has directed a film it makes me straight away want to go see it because I just love how he creates his films.

My second director I like is Mark Rosman; he directed the films A Cinderella Story, The Perfect Man, Life Size and many more girlie films. I like his style or movie because he is really good at making really fun romantic girlie films, in all three of these films he always has the one perfect boy who always is every girls dream- good-looking, charming and always knows how to do the right thing. When I was younger I always dreamed of finding that boy and his movies always kept these fantasy's real for me because he knew how to portray them in his films.

My last and final director that I have chosen is James Wan, he directed all the Saw movies which I loved. Even though they scared the hell out of me and left my heart beating so fast and my mouth wide open, he is a great director in how he tells the story and puts it all together and uses the enigmatic code to create a mystery and a horror film. James Wan made me fall in love with horror films, before I saw any of the Saw movies I wouldn't want to watch a horror film and now I love to go see them.

Research into Short Films

This short film is very clever although its very short but you get a lot of information from just the first shot. The narrative is told backwards which i think is really clever and i like a lot, this is also another convention i could use in my short story. At the end of the film it rewinds itself which i thought was really clever and showed you what happened. Even though this was only a minute and a half long from the shots the audience are shown you can gather a lot of information from it

In this film 'Occupied' the narrative is very simple about a girl smoking on a plane, but the camera angles and editing make the story a lot more interesting and keeps the audience interesting by making it unknown to the audience what she is doing. This is something i intend to do with my film, take a very simple story and make it into a short film and have a twist of the unknown in it and make my work very clever. The mise en scene in this film is really clever how she has hidden bits of the lighter and cigarette under her clothes and how she puts it all together for her to have a cigarette.

This short film was quite odd and strange and I couldn't see myself using anything from this but gave me an insight into what is required to make a short film, which is a simple story that has a beginning middle and end. In this short film the beginning was the guy sticking a wire into the fruit, the middle was all the odd objects coming out the speakers and the end was when he electrocuted himself with the wire.

The moral of the short film is maybe don't stick electrical in places they shouldn't go, or don't play with wires possibly. This short film was just the first film I watched to get a feel for what I was making.

This short film helped me more with showing me how a simple story line can make an excellent short film. This film is set in a dull office and its the stereotypical image of a man photocopying who hates his job and extremely bored. Then this black hole enables him to go through things such as vending machines etc. The moral of the story is about greed, because the man got too greedy with the money in the safe and ended up getting locked in it. The mise en scence in this film is very grey lighting making it look like a dull boring office, the guy is dressed in a suit showing he is a working man but his facial expressions convey that he is bored and doesn't want to be there.