Reflective Analysis

My intention was to capture and produce a short film of 6-8 shots, my film is a hybrid of horror and possibly comedy,as we attempted to fit both in. I hope my film would slightly creep the audience out with the stalker and make them laugh at the end, as the story line reveled him not to be a stalker and that he wanted to ask the time, the story line and charters helped make it a horror comedy.

My target audience is teenagers from around 10-18. The film would be a PG as it can creep little kids out at the start and them maybe wouldn't understand the humor if they are on there own.This film doesn't contain any violence, inappropriate language or sexual content so it is appropriate for most ages.

Conventions of horror that were included was; a hooded figure, a stalker victim, a slightly isolated location and scary music. It has a comedy aspect of that the stalker asked the time, so that you think that when he approaches the girl you think he is going to do something violent but instead he acts awkwardly and asked the time, so it leads you to think one thing and then does another. I think by using these conventions my film was a success.    

Final Dance scene from dirty dancing

The scene starts off with Patrick Swayze’s character Johnny Castle walking on stage towards Jennifer Grey  character Baby Houseman to the song “time of my life”. The song is being play through a record player at the side of the stage making the music dietetic. The lighting has a red/pink colour to it; the colour represents the love and passion between the two characters as they are dancing the love and passion could also be towards the dancing as during the film the two characters became close through dancing and the character Johnny dances for a living. As the two characters are dancing you can see their shadows on the back wall and there is only light on the characters and darkened areas in the background so a low key lightning has been used.

As Johnny walks towards Baby it is a long shot with full bodies of both of the charters on the screen, it soon changes to a medium shot when Johnny holds Baby as it is only shooting from the waste up. As the two characters start to dance it changes to a close up with just both characters head and shoulders in the shot. From then the camera angles switch from long shot to medium shot to medium long shots.

Shortly into the dance the camera starts panning around the dancing 180 degrees and then cuts to a view of Baby’s parents and sister, then cuts back to a long shot to see both characters full body’s while dancing.

Further into the dance you hear cheers coming from the audience which is still dietetic sound as it is coming from in the scene although you may not see the people making the noise. Shortly after the cheering and some well-choreographed moves the camera cuts to the parents and then cuts back to panning round the dancing. The angles continue to change between long shots, medium, close ups and long medium shots as the dancing continues.

When Johnny jumps off the stage it is a long shot but also it is in slow motion until it cuts to the dad and cuts back and you never see him land on the floor, it shows a close up of Johnny looking at Baby and then he continues to dance while being in a long shot, followed swiftly by a close up, keeping baby out of focus on the stage. It switches to long shots focusing on Johnny then cuts to a close up of Baby watching Johnny, then cuts back to long shot and long medium shots of Johnny dancing, soon to be joined by background dancers. When Baby gets lifted off the stage by the dancers and runs to Johnny and does the famous dirty dancing lift it is being paned to follow the action.

The different camera angles are used so you can see all of the dancing taken place and you can see the facial expressions of the actors in charters making you believe they are the characters doing the dance.

Abbie Leeson- horror movies

Movies have many genres like romance, comedy, horror etc. Horror movies are made to try and scare the person or people watching and sometimes they succeed and you have nightmares about the film for weeks or they are so terrible you can’t help but laugh. Over the years it is clear to see that old films, although back in there time they were “hide under the blanket” scary, now they are something to fall asleep too.  New horror films are scarier and are more likely to create fear, this can be to do with the effects being better or scarier monsters/ghosts etc. because thought of and being placed in a fearful story.

Most horrors focus on clichés like taking place in a remote distant place; this could be old half empty/ abandoned towns (Jeepers’ creepers), a cave (decent) and the woods (wrong turn, cabin in the woods). Another clichés would be some kind of focus on the dark for example being in a house with no electricity or searching the woods and the torch dies. The reason these are focused on and featured a lot is because everyone can relate to (for example) how scary the woods are in the dark and the way you imagine what’s behind your back, or hiding in the shadows and bushes. So the more you can relate to the situation the more likely you are to be scared because everyone at some point has been scared of the dark, for one reason or another.

The scariest horror film I ever saw was “The bogeyman” 2005, in fact the first time I watched for the film It scared me too much and I only got about 10 minutes into it, the scene was a young boy in his room and he keeps seeing the bogeyman each time he turned off his light, eventually his dad comes in to check on him and after settling the boy down he checked under the bed and in the wardrobe and as he was standing by the wardrobe he turns round to face the boy, his back to the wardrobe and something drags him in. Watching that scene I was holding onto my pillow for dear life, looking around my room from fear of the bogeyman showing up. That night and for the next couple of months I slept with a nightlight, that scene brought back my fear of the dark.

Other films didn't scare me as much like “wrong turn 4: bloody beginnings” 2011, I enjoy this film so much but not because it scares me or it has fantastic acting and effects this is because it has none of those. The story is interesting and easy to follow, when watching this film with my friends we clearly had favorites and we said “aww I didn't want him to die” whenever they did but we were rarely grossed out because the effects wasn't that good. The most enjoyable scene was right at the end where the two last victims have managed to get on a Jet Ski and drive away only to be met with cheese wire that took their heads straight off, instead of being in shock that no one survived me and my friends were in hysterics for the next 2 hours. 

Horror movie remakes are often unbelievably rubbish, however the “woman in black” 2012 I found myself burring my head into my sisters arm, as we watched it in the cinema which made it more scarier in my opinion, but the movie has suspense, jump scares and scary ghost. The woman in black I though was greatly created and designed because she could leave the house she was haunting and kill children which struck fear into everyone but mostly children because at least adults could say that The woman in black would kill them. Also I love how the charter looked like a woman in black, so at night time when you are in your room trying to get to sleep and you see a shadow for curtains or draws or clothes, you can make a resemblance which continues to scare you.

When I went to the cinema to see “the conjuring” 2013 one of the scariest parts for me is when the ghost appears on top of the wardrobe and then jumps down and attacks the girl. This freaked me out mostly when I got home and because I store things on top of my wardrobe it looked like she was on top of my wardrobe like she was ion the film.

St Elmo’s fire by Abbie Leeson

St Elmo’s fire is a film about 7 best friends and there journey after collage and it features all different types of relationships between charters like being best friend, being in love with each other and being in love with someone who doesn't know, which is brilliant because normally in story’s there is only one or two of the types of relationship and it is with the same people but this film has different people with different relationships with each other.  I think this film is so fantastic and I loved every minute of it. This film is almost indescribable, it made me laugh, it made me happy and at some points I was tensing up and biting my nails wondering what the charters were going to do next and how they would react. This film although old and outdated is still an un replaceable classic to me much like similar film the breakfast club. I have seen this film so many times that it partially lives in my laptop. I think that one of the best parts of this film is that everyone for some reason or another can relate to the situations or the charters or both.

Out of the seven main charters featured in this film my favorite by far way Kevin, the charters sarcastic humor made me laugh, I started to like him in the scene where he is on his bed listening  to  respect  by Aretha Franklin, singing along and playing bongos wearing sunglasses and then he has to stop when Kirbo walks in. That scene is hilarious not only for the content because I have done something similar and I was able to relate to the charter and the scene. Another reason I like Kevins charter so much is because he is in a situation that I can relate to with liking someone that they can’t have which most people go through and it is realistic and relate able.

There are so many good scenes in the film but I think the best one is where Jules has locked herself in her apartment and Kirbo, Billy, Kevin, Alec and Leslie come and try and get to Jules. Even though Alec tried to hurt Kevin and each person had their own personal problems they dropped it to help their friend and I think that is truly inspiring how that she has friends that care so much about her and are willing to get a blow torch to break the bars on the window and risk hurting themselves by charging through a door. It makes me wish and wonder if my own friends are like that because they are a friend group that I look up to and want to be like because of how close and caring they are. It also makes me happy to see them become friends again, through the arguments and bad behavior they all came through and sorted everything else. In the scene at the end where they were deciding whether to go for a drink in their usual place, it shows how they all grew up and became more like adults because they decided against it because of work and decided on brunch instead so they can still hand out like they used to but adapt to suit their new selves, which I look up to and hope to be like with my friends because although we are getting older and we have work and school and we can’t hang out like usual, but we can still try because the charters I have known my friends for years and wouldn't want to lose them.       

 

   

Why the fault in our stars was a box office hit Abbie Leeson

When looking at a film’s success most people tend to look at the opening weekend box office results, this is because it is most common and important. However by adding all the tickets sale money is how the film’s success is measured. Between the time of when the film was  released and when it is not in cinema anymore, all the results over this time are split into two sections of domestic which is the money made in the US and Canada, and foreign is all the other countries the film made money in. 

The fault in our stars has become a massive box office hit with making $48,002,523 in the USA on its opening weekend. A reason for its massive success is due to the five Instagram users who helped market the film. The 5 Intergramers went to an early  released of the film and told to share their experience, and that they did, with 350,000 engagements on Instagram, which convince around 16 million people to go see the film adding to making almost $170 million in the world wide box office.

As well as the 5 Intergramers the fantastic reviews the film has received of many people, websites and newspapers have helped encourage more people to see the film as so many have said how brilliant the film was to watch. Most of the reviews share how it is wise, funny and heart-breaking, on rotten tomato it is given a 6.8/10 with it showing how audience gave it a 4.4/5 sharing in the good reviews; however the guardian shows a 2 star out of a 5 star rating and tells readers how it is a phoney-baloney cancer fantasy which is disagreeing with most other reviews. Although the bad review has made me along with others curious to see which review is right and if so to prove the writer wrong.

As we all know the fault in our stars is based on the novel by John Green. The novel is one of the bestselling a book with its  released in 2012. The fault in our stars in along with 3 other books in a set written by John Green. This book has been read by millions of people all over the world and has become extremely popular along with John Green himself.

 John Green is originally one half of the vlogBrothers which is a popular YouTube channel. VlogBrothers is a YouTube channel that John does with his brother Hank. John still does upload video talking about many different things including “question Friday” in which he answers questions sent to him.

The film itself contains stars Ansel Elgort and Shailene Woodley which both are stars in Divergent the fantastic book series which got the actors more known before the fault in our stars came out, this encouraged the people who like the actors to explore other films like the fault in our stars. The film also stars Nat Wolff who like many teenagers grew up watching on the naked brother band on T.V so fans of his will be entwined to see the film as I am.  

The films its self is for everyone to watch, from adults to teenagers, everyone will enjoy it. It also raises awareness of Cancer and what it does to family and friends as well as the patients. It touches on some serious issues and not only creates suspense, it also create humor to make it more friendly.