Loaning Media Equipment: Guidelines

Each of you will be issued with a copy of the document below to sign, show to (and discuss with) your parents, and return to me (once they're all in I'll photocopy and return them to you - please don't fold the sheet).
We have a lot of you seeking cameras at any one time, so need to make sure they're kept in constant circulation so everyone has fair and equal access and can plan shoots without having to worry about getting cameras.

As noted on the bottom of this, the 10 sets of earphones I bought just last year have all disappeared, so there will not be any to borrow - you really do need to bring your own set with you each day. You can buy basic earphones from £1.99 on Amazon.


Loaning Media Equipment - Guidelines (2)

Scream 4 Teaser

The biggest slasher franchise of the 90s is back...

I'm sure there will be further teasers building up to the release date (April 15th, 2011), keep an eye out at http://www.scream-4.com/

New set of links

Look over on the http://romcoms.blogspot.com/ for two links lists of trailers that have been recut to present a different genre than intended - fun but also v useful. Here's an example:

80s boom: go old school?

When considering the style and look of your work perhaps you should consider amongst the options a retro approach? There has been a huge 80s turn in contemporary culture, from the music charts to the cinema screens, which this intriguing article (I've long argued a similar point and wholeheartedly agree with the analysis) puts down primarily to the age of the creatives and executives behind the media. The folk in control now are looking back to the 80s as 'their' age - the era when they were adolescents. It'll take 20-30 years but the noughties and then the tens will experience a similar retro boom in time, perhaps fuelled by some of you - just with inferior music and fashions!
From TisEng to Son of Rambow, not to mention Ashes to Ashes, movie versions of The A-Team, re-makes of Battlestar Galactica and horror icons such as Nightmare on Elm Street, the 80s revival is finally here!

From Times Online

April 23, 2010

Why Hollywood is remaking the Eighties

For today’s movie moguls it was the decade that rocked their world and they are certainly not going to let us forget it

Kevin Maher

G325 Q1a/Q1b

You can find support materials for this, including the post-it note film, sample exam responses etc, at http://prodeval.blogspot.com/

Box Office(Mojo) by Genre

You can examine the history of US box office for your genre/s at https://secure.boxofficemojo.com/genres/?ref=ft
The following example is for the slasher genre:

https://secure.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=slasher.htm (accessed online 8.4.10 - always worth noting as online material can alter!); it should help you justify the choice of genre in terms of its established box office appeal (though you'll also need some UK box office examples).
[You can compare this with a variety of other horror sub-genres at the site, and/or thrillers:

Thriller - Erotic	42	Fatal Attraction	$156.6
Thriller - Political	52	Air Force One	$173.0
Thriller - Psycho / Stalker / Blank from Hell	30	Fatal Attraction	$156.6
Thriller - Serial Killer	46	Hannibal	$165.1

]

Horror - Slasher

1978-Present
Note: Many slasher movies from the '70s and '80s have no box office records, and, hence, do not appear on this chart.
TOTAL GROSSES | OPENING WEEKENDS

Rank	Title (click to view)	Studio	Lifetime Gross / Theaters		Opening / Theaters		Date
1	Scream	Dim.	$103,046,663	1,994	$6,354,586	1,413	12/20/96
2	Scream 2	Dim.	$101,363,301	2,688	$32,926,342	2,663	12/12/97
3	Scream 3	Dim.	$89,143,175	3,467	$34,713,342	3,467	2/4/00
4	Freddy Vs. Jason	NL	$82,622,655	3,014	$36,428,066	3,014	8/15/03
5	The Texas Chainsaw Massacre	NL	$80,571,655	3,018	$28,094,014	3,016	10/17/03

grab PrintScreen for Macs

You'll be wanting screen grabs at various points, but probably won't know how to on a Mac.
This web-page (here as a Word doc) shows you how.

.....


There is an alternative I wasn't aware of until reading a post in Emmie's blog (always acknowledge your sources!): the grab tool. This wiki entry tells you all you need to know!

Guardian Article on Film Trailers

The new rebel film trailers

Movie trailers used to be pretty formulaic – just show the best bits – but, in the age of the internet viral, they're now works of art in themselves.



If you're looking for art or auteurship at the cinema, you're likely to be waiting for the main feature, not concentrating on the trailers for what were quaintly known as "coming attractions". As long as they have existed, trailers have been the tool of film marketing departments aiming solely to secure the maximum number of bums on seats. Experimentation with the form has not been a big part of the story. There have been brief

Mag design

I'll just draw your attention to an excellent online resource on mag designs (added to the links list on mags): http://bestdesignoptions.com/?p=4076

Use the AS blog too

I post some things on both AS and A2 blogs, but not all; its worth looking at the AS blog (http://asmediafilmopening.blogspot.com/) to see if there's more you can pick up - eg there are links lists for company logos there.

Moderator's report + RESUBMISSION DEADLINE

Its worth sharing with you the exam board moderator's comments, which set out where marks have been altered (most marks above 80 were brought down, the rest largely untouched):

Work from the Centre was well presented and detailed comments aided the moderation process, thank you.
The assessment criteria were generally applied within the tolerance allowed for this component. However, marks awarded for construction and evaluation were over-generous at the top end of the Centre's order of merit and this has necessitated an adjustment in order to bring the Centre into line with the agreed standard.
Candidates had clearly engaged with their selected briefs, with focused research and planning conducted. There was some strong evidence of understanding of film grammar, though some productions would have benefitt

The Art of the Vodcast

I've posted on podcasting earlier. A simple but effective idea for a vodcast - incorporating video, not just audio - is to talk through some of the films you've viewed and/or researched, using visual stimuli such as holding up a DVD case. This example is part of a series by a US slasher fan; I don't agree with everything he says (how could he dismiss the almighty Jason X?!), but you could pick up ideas for films to research/view from videos like this. Similar efforts exist for most genres.

Example 1: 'Horror DVD Collection Traditional Slasher Films Part 2'

Example 2: 'Slasher Movie Montage: 1971 - 2001'

This is another nice, simple but highly effective idea, and an alternative to typing your research into a post in the usual way, requiring images loaded into iMovie - though in your case with some explanatory titles added! Its useful to note too the community feel created by the comments such YouTube uploads attract. Many of you will be wondering which are the most useful/relevant films for you to view and study - why not use sites such as this - and even more so forums (see earlier post) to tap into the huge online fanbase for such genres?
You can find useful tips in videos such as 'Top Five Underrated Horror Films (you've probably never seen)' [I haven't linked as there may be some explicit material in this] ... and the comments it attracted, which include many other suggestions

Example 3: 'Top 15 Slasher Movies'

Again, a really simple idea, but could be a fun alternative to the conventional post.

Example 4: Total Film magazine's YouTube channel: episode on rom-coms

This is an excellent resource; some insightful comments here on why certain genres are popular for example.
Example 5: Zombies vs. Vampires
This one takes the approach of comparing and contrasting two sub-genres and their appeal, plus strengths and weaknesses and notable examples, plus historical trends.Some of you are melding differing genres in a hybrid genre, so why not consider something like this?

Example 6: 'Fave Rom-Coms'

Again, you'd want some accompanying text/titles to provide some context (and/or audio commentary), but hopefully you can see the potential of just such an approach.

Taking on any of these approaches will help to make your blog a winner!

Just to round this off, although it is vitally important that you use some books to gain the depth of insight and analysis these provide, I would also encourage you to make good use of YouTube and its equivalents. If you read about a director, a sub-genre, actor or whatever, see if you can find a film on there which might enhance your understanding. As an example, I've cited John Hughes to some of you as a director worth looking into. A great YouTube upload for this is 'Directed by John Hughes', which I haven't linked because it does contain some strong language. If you flick a couple of minutes into the following though, you get a useful compilation, or montage, of his work.

A real-life eg of importance of defining target aud

Yet another reminder of why its so useful to keep dipping into the Film Guardian comes this snippet - which highlights the central importance of having a well-defined target audience:

The Crazies proved once again that concepts, not marquee names, are king at today's multiplex. Despite lacking a big star, it was the only new release this weekend to open at £1m-plus, and the only one to achieve a screen average above £3,000. This remake of a little-seen 1973 George Romero zombie-horror benefited from a clearly defined audience and a lack of competition in the genre market, opening not far behind the debut figure of the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (£1.36m) and almost dead level with the first weekend of 2006's The Hills Have Eyes (£1.13m). With a production budget estimated by IMDBPro at $12m, the title is likely to be solidly profitable for its investors and international distributors.

Source: Gant, Charles (2010) "The Crazies lurch to UK box office success", The Guardian [online], 2.3.10. Accessed online 2.3.10 at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/mar/02/the-crazies-uk-box-office

To see how the campaign for this film developed, and watch the trailer, see http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2009/12/21/the-final-poster-for-the-crazies-is-released/

A YouTube alternative

Some of you have had difficulties uploadingto/embedding from YouTube; if so, you could try Vimeo as an alternative

Print text resources

I've gathered most of the archive posts on these at http://bauermags.blogspot.com/ - don't neglect these in your evaluations

No Tech Support after lunch today

John will be busy after lunch, so if you need equipment or assistance you must see him before lunch today

Quoting and providing sources

Whether you're directly quoting (using quote marks if within a sentence or indenting - blogger provides a quote tool to indent any highlighted text [also change the font if you do]) from anything you've read, you should provide a full reference (details of where it came from). As I'm blogging across 30+ blogs I don't always for the sake of speed, but you should!
The basic details you're looking to provide are:

1. author/s or editor/s
2. year of publication (or full dd/mm/yyyy if newspaper/web)
3. title of article (in "" or Italics)
4. for books, place of publication + publisher
5. page number/s
6. URL and date accessed online if web
7. for films, always give director's surname and year of release (in brackets) after the 1st mention of a title in any post (no need to repeat within a post, but do within a new post)

Use the guide below for more
Referencing & Bibliography
I might add further resources later

Adding audio to your blog

Basically, you need to create an MP3 file, upload this to a site which will give you an embed code- I suggest www.divshare.com - and then copy/paste in the embed code.

The two screenshots show you how this works; as with Scribd the upload is very simple; you now click on more options and  you'll see the box in the 2nd screen shot appear - now just copy the embed code.


I'll test this out with a random music track...[14th Feb: changed this; must have mistyped the email adrs on the account sign up]





As you may well be using a video camera to record your audio, an alternative to extracting the audio track and putting it through GarageBand/iTunes is to add some relevant stills to the imported track within Final Cut (preferrably - try to start using this!), upload it to YouTube and use the embed code it generates. You're also then using additional new media for your project.

How to convert your audio file to mp3

You can import your file into iTunes where you can convert it ... but you have to change some settings to do this.
Open iTunes
Click 'iTunes' on the top menu
Click 'Preferences' from the drop-down list
Look under the General tab for 'import settings'
By default, iTunes will convert files to the aac format ... no good ...
So change this to mp3 from the drop-down menu

Quicker still, import an audio file into iTunes, click ADVANCED and select CONVERT TO MP3

Staff training day on 1st Monday back

If you give me advance notice (ie this week) you can come in to edit on the Monday, so long as its an early start and you don't disturb me (I'll be working on research P1-3)

Tapes now for sale @ £2ea

To save you having to buy 5 for £15 (Tescos) I've bought a few which you buy off Jan at £2 each

Accessing John for equipment + technical help

First of all please ensure you use the correct door for the staffroom, and do not enter the main staffroom itself. If John is not there, do not ask staff where he is, and, crucially, be quiet!!! There have been complaints from other staff. Try to give John advance notice of any requirements; to this end it would be useful to use John's email: john.cockshaw@ilkleygs.ngfl.ac.uk

Alice in Wonderland teaser

Useful too for some points on Helena Bonham-Carter's early career as a Merchant Ivory bodice-wearing Brit, you can see the teaser for this in this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/feb/06/helena-bonham-carter-interview

Your top tips for this year's AS hopefuls?

I'd like you to reflect on your AS coursework from the bygone AS era, and try to think what you wish you'd known: can you think of any tips to pass on to the current AS hopefuls?
Please click through to the post at http://asmediafilmopening.blogspot.com/2010/01/tips-and-reflections-from-class-of-2009.html and add a comment