We had to access the opening scene of Back to the Future; our group was split up into 4 parts, Jazz analised the character positions, Mark analysed the sound, Abi analysed the camera movements and Ryan analysed the mise-en-scene. We then had to document our work onto a story board which Mark wrote up and Jazz drew the pictures.
From the title of the film, you can tell immediately that it's an adventure film. This is because it suggests that somebody will go missing and a search will be carried out to find them. The audience hears the name Nemo mentioned right at the start when Marlyn and Coral are discussing the names they are going to call their children. Therefore, this gives the audience an idea that it will be one of the children that goes missing. From the beginning, a family element is introduced because the couple have moved to a new area that is appropriate for raising their children in. The audience can then tell that the theme is family orientated. The opening scene uses a lot of bright colours and all the fish are colourful and look like they're having fun, whereas the shark is a dark colour which suggests binary opposites. The binary opposites are the fish and the shark, so it is good and evil. The audience knows to relate to Marlyn and Coral's side because they are on the good side and are automatically seen as good characters that the audience can relate to. The sound used in this clip is soft and gentle. A calm piece of music is used and the sound of bubbles and water makes the audience feel relaxed. However, when the shark comes you notice the calm and gentle music stops and it quickly switches to a dark and scary soundtrack. This represents the sharks character, and lets the audience know something bad is going to happen. The audience is introduced to the setting straight away. It is bright and lively, which keeps the audience interested at the same time as picking up the location of where it is set. The area is a good area, which you can tell from the dialogue from when they are talking about moving there. Genre is represented in many ways in the clip. Just from reading the title, the audience can pick up that it is an adventure film. Right from the very beginning, when the shark comes, this introduces the first piece of action. Therefore, the audience can probably tell that after this it will go into the genre of Adventure. The lighting used in the opening clip is very bright therefore it seems fun and interesting for the audience however it gets a lot darker when the shark comes so it changes the whole mood of the scene.
In the preliminary task, I learnt to use Final Cut Express in order to give our film clip a professional look. By using this programme, we were able to cut out any scenes with mistakes in and edit things like the conversation scene that takes place. In this, a shot reverse shot was used hich is where one of the group was filmed saying all their lines then the other person in the conversation is filmed saying all of their lines. Then when editing the clip in Final Cut Express, we could cut out parts so that the conversation made sense when put together. In the film clip, we used the 180 degree rule in order to film the conversation scene. The 180 degree rule is to save the viewer from feeling confused and disorientated. It is when there is an imaginery line cutting through the middle of the scene running parallel to the cameraman, the camera should never cross the imaginery line in the scene in order to create a clear scene. The film clip also uses match on action when there is a close up of my hand on the door handle and then it films from the other side of the door and the viewer see's me walking through the door. Match on action is when you see the scene from one angle then it switches to another camera angle but it's still the same scene. This ensures that the clip will flow, rather than not make sense and jump to different scenes. Doing the preliminary task has prepared me for the actual task as I know how to do different camera angles, and how to use the editing programme afterwards. Therefore, when it comes to the actual task, I would have had practise from the preliminary task and know what to do.
