Belstone Pictures

Saturday 23rd October 2022

Belstone Pictures

 

The CEO of Belstone Pictures is Finn Cardigan Bruce where in 2016 he started to direct, produce and oversee the physical production and sales of the company. Finn began his love and dream of working in the film industry at Hurtwood House and when he was leaving the school, founded the Belstone Pictures as a way to pursue his dream. Finn worked with many people ;gaining contacts, such as Shaun Redick and Raymansfield. He helped them with the financing, production and worldwide distribution on their feature film. He then moved on to work with film finance Nicola Horlick for 2 years, where he helped the film funds and development. 

Tucked

On May 17th 2019 Belstone Pictures released Tucked. The film is about an 80 year old drag queen who finds our he only has a month left to live due to a terminal illness. He becomes friend with a younger aspiring drag queen, both helping each other through love, loss and friendship. To save money the film was set in Brighton and East Sussex and the company used their close contacts to do lots of the job. They managed to get Jordan Stephens (Faith) who was in the famous British band Rizzle Kicks and April Pearson, who is most known for playing Michelle in the program Skins. The soundtrack for the film was written by Sam Beveridge, who also performed lots of the tracts. As the film was only small budget, it managed to get a box office gross number of $23,080 worldwide. 

Making Tracks

The most recent film released by the company was Making Tracks about a couple who spontaneously decide ro have a trip travelling around Europe however decide to take opposite paths throughout their journey. The release date was October 5th 2020 right after the first pandemic. The film was written by Finn Bruce, Jamie Patterson and April Pearson. April Pearson also starred in Tucked and is married to Jamie Patterson. Jamie Patterson also directed this film. The use of using the same actors and contacts meant that the overall cost of the film wasn't too much. 

PAUL DOOD'S DEADLY LUNCH BREAK

Celebrity cast: 

- Tom Meeten

- Katherine Parkinson

- Kris Marshall

- Jonny Vegas

Directed:

- Nick Gillespe

Written By:

- Nick Gillespe

 Released:

 - March 17th 2021

 About:

 - Paul Good sets out to kill five people as they all  helped to make him miss his audition. 

 Awards:

 - The film was shown in the SXSW 2021 film festival 

 - Winner of the Final Draft Screenwriters Award

The comparison between Black Widow and No Time To Die in products

Sunday 17th October 2022

 

The comparison between Black Widow and No Time To Die in products

Black Widow and No Time To Die are both action films which are part of a much larger franchise. No time to die is part of the 25 film James Bond franchise and Black Widow is part of the Marvel universe which consisted of 23 films. Both franchises appealed to different generations, No Time To Die appealed more to the older generations as the first film was released in the 1960s. Black Widow on the other hand appealed more to the younger gereration as the marvel movies were first created in 1980s and publisised more in the 2000s. However the marvel films got attention from the older generation due to the comics. 

Cast and money earned and spent

Daniel Craige is a massive A-List celebrity who played James Bond in the five most recent films in the franchise. He reportedly made £25 Million on his last Bond film and would also receive more money if the box office goes well. No Time To Die also uses other A list celebrities such as emmy award winner, Rami Melik to help bring more viewers as he is a big star due to his role in Bohemium Rapsody. Melik earned around 7 million US dollars in the film, which made him one of the highest paid cast membours. The use of the celebrities meant that No Time To Die earnt £7millon from the UK box office, putting it as the second most successful box office film out of all of the James Bonds. 

Black Widow also used many A list Hollywood celebrities such as Scarlet Johanson and Florence Pugh. Johansson was paid 15 million US dollars upfront before filming which was the highest paid actor in this film. Scarlet earned less than Daniel Craige even though the marvel films overall, have been more modernised and have more younger viewers. Over the 18months of promoting the film, 150 million US dollars was spent on top of there 200 million dollar production budget. Black widow spent more on marketing than James Bond as they advertised more on Disneys streaming platforms such as Disney Plus. Disney revealed that Black Widow                     earned $150 million streaming on Disney Plus and $60million streaming on other platforms. 

                     Posters

Both posters for Black Widow and No Time To Die show off the lead character in the centre of the picture. In the poster on the left the red represents Black Widows character throughout the whole of the Marvel Universe and also makes the Marvel Studios sign stand out. The artist that designed this poster was called Max Ferguson and said to be inspired by the James Bond films. In the James Bond poster the colours that were used throughout all of the posters were white, blue, black and gold. This created unison and also meant that is someone couldn't read what the poster said they still could make out the 007 and Daniel Craige and understand that its the James Bond poster. The Black widow posters used red, white and black and could be distinctly recognised as a marvel film due to the logo and Scarlet Johansson. The use of having Johansson looking directly into the camera meant that the people looking at the poster would feel connected to her and would entice them to watch the film. 

The Male gaze in the marketing 

Both films used strong female actors in their advertising to gain more views. The male gaze is used by the directors to create attractive females to make the film more "exciting" for males. Even though Ana De Armes wasn't a lead in the film and only featured in one of the scenes, she still features in one of main character posters which is adveritised is many countries. In this picture you can tell that the character Paloma is wearing red lipstick and and a revealing, tight, black dress. This appeals to many people in the audience and gives the media someone to focus on. 

In all of the Marvel films, the character Black Widow has been sexualised a lot as the directors have wanted her to wear tight black lycra to make her seem more "athletic", but I think they want her character to appeal to men. Through the marvel films you can see that Johansson's character is wearing less revealing clothes but still is sexualised in Black Widow.

No Time To Die song 

The No Time To Die theme song was written by Billie Eilish and her brother Feanuis in April 2020. It was meant to be realised a few months before the film was released but due to covid only the song was released as the film was postponed. The song won a GRAMMY for the best song written for visual media and received 90,000 chart sales in the first seven days of being released. This song helped the film get more public attraction as it meant that younger generations, who were fans of Billie, were keen to watch the film. 

analysis of Dead Man's Shoes

Dead Man's Shoes

directed: Shane Meadows

- cross fade and cutting (fades to see them as adults and children as one shot) 

- childhood of two brothers 

- modern however the flashbacks are 1970s 

- age effects over the childhood memories

- small British independent film

- music creates a happy and reminisant tone

- walking right to left shows that they are returning home

- the dissolve sets up the relationship

- depth of path

- long journey but they know it well

- one dressed for country and the other in tracksuit

- older one leading the younger one

- no talking

- late 70s in flash back as brown colours

- come towards the camera and then away

- a to b journey 

The editing using cross cutting between original looking home video footage and the shot images of two brothers walking through a field. To show the whole field a scenic hide establishing shot us used to show the journey of the brothers. The long distance shots show the depth of the girls, creating an idea that they could be walking for a while. Over the top of the field, a non- diegetic song is played, creating a reminiscent melancholic tone. The music is British town folk implying that it could be a coming of age or drama film.                                     

IMAX

 IMAX

The IMAX is a corporation which is a proprietary system of theatres, films projectors and high-resolution cameras. It uses huge screens of 18 x 24m and the film runs horizontally so that the image width can be greater than the width of the film stock. 

- The IMAX were co-founded by Graeme Ferguson, Roman Koritor, Robert Kerr
and William C Shaw in September 1967. 

- The IMAX's tequnique produces an area that is 9 times larger than the usual 35mm format.

- Fox was the first brand to introduce the first 70mm film format which was called the Fox Granduar however, unfortunately this wasn't used for too long. 

-  The name IMAX was invented in 1970 after the original name Multiscreen Corporation, Limited. Many people thought IMAX is an acronym however is a made up word that Furguson created. 

- The screen is 4500 times bigger than and average TV screen.

What is so different about the IMAX than a regular cinema

- The IMAX is different as the screen is in a dome shape and the seats are more vertical. The screen is so large its can fill your field of vision and some people find this motion so strong that they can start feeling sick. The camera that the films are filmed on are massive and weigh around 240 pounds! This also means that the film needs to be larger and this increases the size of the projector. As everything is filmed and produced with much larger equipment, it means that there are more pixels so the quality is much clearer. Everything that is shown on the IMAX needs to be perfect as the audience can see every bit of detail. 

- The theatres are also very different. The screens are domed and the seats sit more horisontal meaning that the screen covers most of the theatre and therefore it makes you feel as if you are part of the film. This immerse type of theatre is amazing for the audiences experience however is very expressive. As the equipment is very heavy it needs about of people to make sure it is safe. It can cost around £100,000 to use the equipment per day, so filming using an IMAX camera can cost millions. 

Type of cameras 

Phantom 65 IMAX 3D digital camera

- This camera was announced in 2011 where IMAX said that they had a 4K 3D digital camera. 

- Transformers Age Of Extinction is the first featre filmed partially filmed with the Phantom Digital Camera.

ARRI Alexa IMAX digital camera

- In 2015, IMAX announced a 2D digital camera.

- It was first used in Captain America Civil war and the next on avengers Infinity War and Endgame

Guardians of Galaxy and Stranger Than Fiction evaluation

Monday 4th October 2022

Guardians of the Galaxy evaluation

The scene begins with groot in the right side of the screen trying to plug in the speaker. The ambient diegetic crackeling sound before it is plugged in shows that the music playing is diegetic and the characters can hear it. However the contrapuntal sound is acting as a non- diegetic sound track as it is playing over the duration of the sequence. There is a freeze frame when groot plugs in the music and the title of the film is shown. The director uses bold writing for the title to make sure it makes a statement and everyone can read it. The camera gets knocked off centre with the action still frozen and then the action plays showing the chaotic scene behind. Groot is in the centre of field in the camera composition showing the audience that he will be the main focus in the title sequence. The location behind Groot is unknown and probably from another planet. We can tell this because of the space ships and mythical creatures. The noise of the explosions and space ships are diegetic and matching the action. The sound effect is synchronous to Groot dancing, showing the audience that it can be heard during the action. It is acting as a sound bridge over the long duration of scenes. When Groot climbs onto the animals back and travels forward the camera moves steady and zooms towards them causing the audience to feel like they are on the journey with them. A birds eye view shot is used to show that Groot is about to fall off the edge however is saved. To show his emotion, a close up shot is used to show that he is petrified after being of the edge of the bridge. The music then stops when the speakers are landed on causing a pleonastic sound effect of the smashed parts landing everywhere. Groot then screams showing his frustration for the speakers being broken which tells the audience that the main part of the film is about to take place. 

Stranger Than Fiction evaluation

The scene begins with a zoom in towards his house and through his window until it reaches his watch, and the scene begins when the diegetic alarm plays. The non-diegetic voice track starts playing introducing the man brushing his teeth. There is a close up shot from the inside of his mouth so you can see his reflection in the mirror. The noise of the brushing is exaggerated to be able to hear over the voice over. The non diegetic music begins which is synchronous to the rhythm of the brushing. Writing is put over the top of the visuals representing the information that his watch would show him. The scene then splits into three showing the journey of him brushing his teeth, this helps speed up the scene and make it not boring. The character then is shown walking to work across his road, the non diegetic sound track still plays in the background. The director then edits his running to slow motion showing the audience that his steps are exactly every one second. The writing now shows what his brain is processing, when he is asked a maths sum you see him internal processing. To show that something abnormal is going to happen there is a blackout and a flashback. To show the flash back the scene is pigmented yellow and a little boy is sitting on the bike with his father. The young boy could be the man however its unknown yet in the opening scene. The scene returns to the man brushing his teeth however it is clear to the audience a whole day has past. The non diegetic voice over becomes an ambient sound so the man in the scene can hear it. The sound track stops showing the audience the importance of this scene. The writing has also stopped to show the audience that the film properly starts there and isn't showing his morning routine anymore. When the man says "Who's talking" its the first time we hear his voice. The camera then does a close up on his face showing the panic and confusion that someone is narrating his life. 

opening title sequences

The Shining Opening 

 

In the opening sequence of The Shining, you can clearly work out that the genre is going to be a thriller due to the suspenseful music and the way the scene is filmed. In this scene the non-diegetic music is eery, screechy and in a minor key to make the audience uncomfortable. The visuals in this scene are the complete opposite to the unsettling music the scene however still is effectively done to make the audience uneasy. At the very start the camera is moving straight then knocks off centre and cuts to a bird’s eye view to show the remote environment. This is the director trying to make the audience feel sick as the camera doesn’t stay in a fixed position. All the shots in this scene are either extreme long shots, birds eye view or establishing shots. 
The first sense of civilisation you get is in the second shot where you see a car driving up a road next to a cliff. The setting shows the audience that the character is going to a remote environment and the only sense of civilisation you get is a car driving in the opposite direction. The juxtaposition between the visuals and the sound is simple and effective. If the music wasn’t there the tone of the scene would completely change and become a happy genre, however, the music changes the tone completely and is called unempathetic music. As the car gets higher the weather changes, snow appears which makes it harder for the character to reach civilisation and therefore makes the audience more tense. When you see the big mansion for the first time it blends into the mountain behind it. You get an establishing shot when you see the house as it sets the scene and shows the audience where the film is going to take place. 
The titles in this scene are different to many films, they are written in a neon blue, this contrasts to the setting in the scene. The titles move up the screen additionally making the audience feel sick as it isn’t still. The importance in the creators of the film depends on the size that their name is shown on screen. 

 Only one character is introduced in the sequence, and you don’t even see their face. Only once in the scene the moving camera gets close the car but not close enough to see inside. 

This is the first time where the camera gets close to the car and you nearly get a glimpse of the person driving.

This is the first aerial shot of the house. The mansion matches the background which is showing that its camouflaged and more disguised.

This is showing the neon title font that Kubrick used in the title scene. The words moved up the page making the audience feel more sick.

Se7en Opening Sequence

 

In the opening sequence of Se7en, the scratchy sounds and the jumping shots from scenes to scene show the audience that the genre could be either a thriller or an action film. The use of the non-diegetic repetitive beat throughout the scene and the discordant sounds help to create the overall meaning that the film is going to be intense and fast pace. The empathetic music matches the quick shots that jump creating the audience to feel on edge and a sense of lost breath. 

The only type of shot that you see in se7en are close up shots, these are used to show a lot of characteristics about the character without acting showing their face. However even though you don’t see the face or gender of the person you still learn a lot about their personality and intentions. From the close-up shots you get an idea of the persons job or hobbies. You see jars with science experiments inside, pictures of people with their face cut out and many notebooks full of pages of notes. From the number of full notebooks, you can understand that they are a compulsive note taker and is possibly intellectual. Throughout the title sequence you see the character cutting and highlighting words from books such as intercourse, fantasizing and God.  The audience can interpret this to be the character writing a ransom note which shows that they might have cruel intentions in the rest of the film. 

The titles in this film opening are more unique as others as instead of having the text merge into the film that is going on in the background, this sequence stops the action and puts the titles on a black screen. This makes the audience concentrate on the titles and allows the scene to change when it jumps from black title screen to a scene. 

The themes that you get and understand about the character we are introduced to in the opening sequence is they have a fascination with early medical procedures. We can tell this from the many faces with clamps on, jars full of body parts and the extreme note taking. 

Comparing both The Shining and Se7en

 

Both opening scenes both contain short scenes to create impact for the audience. In the shining’s case, the short scenes contained many different camera shots such as establishing shots and birds eye view to make the audience feel nauseous. In se7ens case the use of shorts scenes, which was split up by title scenes, were used to show small parts of the main characters characteristics. However, the music in both sequences don’t match. The Shining’s music is a juxtaposition as the contrapuntal soundtrack doesn’t match the image they are accompanying. The image is a beautiful remote scenery, and the music is very unsettling. Se7ens music on the other hand is synchronous with the action on the screen. This makes the audience fearful as there is always suspense. Both opening titles don’t show the character however gives hints to there personality and what sort of part they will be in the film. For se7en they only show the persons hands and hobbies, for The Shining they only show the man in the car.

Camera, editing, sound and Mise En Scene

Monday 20th September 2022

Mise en Scene

Mise en scene is a term that describes the lighting, set and costume in a play or a film. It is a key factor in any production as it helps it become naturalistic for the audience. Costume and props are very important as it can help the audience understand the time period and the genre of the film. For instance in a period drama the costumes and the setting makes it believable, if you had a modern day car it wouldn't be correct.

Mise en scene types:

- costume

- location

- props

- archetypes

- performance

- movement

- setting

Camera

Camera in media includes the angle of the shot, position of the camera, composition of the characters, depth of field and the types of shots. All of the types of shots add texture to the scene. An establishing shot for an example explains to the audience the location where the scene will take place. The camera shots help films be more interesting for the audience as you can see things from different perspectives. 

 Shot types:

- establishing shot: establishes location, set and environment

- master shot: breaks the action

- close up: focuses and increases the attention of the audience

- mid shot: closeness without intimacy

- wide shot: showing part of the set to emphasise size and scale

- low angle: lower status, look shorter

- high angle: high status, look taller

- POV shot: creates the impression that you are looking through viewers eyes

Camera movement:

- pan: shot that moves steady

- tilt: camera looks up/down

- track/dolly/steadicam: from a fixed camera, wheels or harness

- crane: camera mounted on a crane

- handheld: shaky movement, create realism

- zoom lens: creates illusion of movement by altering the lens

Sound

Sound is highly important in the making of a film. It helps create the mood, build tension and help the scenes be emotive. You can have synchronous music which matches the action on the screen. This builds emotion. If a contrapuntal sound is used, it doesn't match the action which makes the audience uneasy. This is used in American Psycho where he is murdering someone and listening to an upbeat soundtrack.

Sound types:

- diegetic: ambient background noise, dialogue, sound effects

- non-diegetic: soundtrack, VoiceOver

- pleonastic sound: exaggerated sound

- parallel sound: sound goes hand in hand with the image they are occompanying

- synchronous: matches the action

- asynchronous: separate from the visuals, such as a voice over or dialogue from another scene

Editing

Editing is also used to make a film more interesting. To edit a scene you can blur out the background to make a character or a prop stand out. You can also zoom into a character which creates focus and tension of a person. The composition of a character in the frame shows different things and different heiracy. 

Editing types:

- eyeliner match

- slow motion

- increased spead

- transitions

- cuts