Facebook Page - Laura Collins

To increase the promotion of our film I have created a Facebook page, entitled 'Rebecca'. With this page we will be able to explain the plot of our opening sequence and give a date of release (June 2011) so that our audience with be interested and will, hopefully, increase in size. Our audience will also be able to give us feedback as to how we can improve our product. I have included a link on the page to our blog at blogspot.com so that our viewers will be able to take part in our poll to assess the success of our product.

Primary and Secondary Research (Safia Shafi)

Primary research and second research

It is very important for our group to do a lot of primary and secondary research to help us make our blog as informative, creative and interactive as possible. Primary research is research that you go out and find yourself, Examples of primary research is questionnaire, interviews, surveys etc. secondary research is that is already available and been found that you may use, examples of secondary research is the internet and books. We used both primary and secondary research to help us in creating our blog, a type of primary research we used is questionnaires, and this is because we wanted to do some audience research and genre research to help us understand the thriller genre and who our target audiences are. Once we had our primary research we needed to find ways to make our blogs as interactive and creative as possible, so we decide to do some secondary research in to software’s we could use, we looked at different software and decided on which one would be best for us to use for our bog, an example of a software that we used is photo shop, this was used to create a logo for our blog.

Weekly Update - Laura Collins

This week our group has mostly concentrated on our storyboard. It has taken us a few days because we went out to take photographs of our actors in our location and later decided our photos weren't good enough and we have also decided to change our location. We have therefore decided to re-take all of our photos. We will then be annotating them in detail. Once this is completed it will be uploaded.  

Narrative/ Tzvetan Todorov Equilibrium - Safia Shafi

Tzvetan Todorov equilibrium

Tzvetan Todorov is a Franco-Bulgarian philosopher who suggested that narratives
begin with:

• an equilibrium where every thing is in balance,
• this is disrupted by some event, setting in a chain of events
• Lastly Problems are solved so that order can be restored.
What he trying to say is that narrative has begging, middle ( where a variety of things happen) and ending.

Tzvetan Todorov suggested that conventional narratives are structured in five stages:
1. a state of equilibrium at the outset;
2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action;
3. a recognition that there has been a disruption;
4. an attempt to repair the disruption;
5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium.

Title Sequence Design Research - (Safia Shafi)

Saul bass 

Saul bass is a famous title sequence designer born in 1920 and died in the 1996.

 He is known as one of the best ever graphic designers for film, he has often worked with directors Martin Scorsese, and especially Alfred Hitchcock on his very famous film Psycho, of which he designed the titles. He has had a long lasting and successful career, helping out with visual concepts, storyboards but most importantly the titles for the bigger cinematic hits of the 20th century.

He first collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger to design the film poster for his 1954 film Carmen Jones. Otto Preminger was very impressed with Bass’s work that he insisted that he were to produce the title sequence as well.

In 1955 Saul Bass became well known in the industry after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm. This film is about a jazz musician's struggle to overcome his heroin addiction. Bass decided to create a controversial title sequence to match the film's controversial subject. He chose the arm as the central image, and the titles featured an animated, black paper cut-out arm of a heroin addict.

As well as working with Otto Preminger he is also famous for his work with Alfred Hitchcock, Bass provided effective, memorable title sequences, using kinetic typography, for North by Northwest,  Vertigo, and Psycho. Later on his work with Martin Scorsese saw him move away from the optical techniques  into computerized titles, from which he produced the title sequence for Casino.

Narrative Roland Barthes (Safia Shafi)

 Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes is a French literary theorist who suggested that narratives are broken into 5 codes, these codes are

1.       The Hermeneutic Code

The Hermeneutic Code refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the reader. The full truth is often avoided, refers to any element in a story that is not explained and, therefore, exists as an enigma for the reader, raising questions that demand explication.

2.       The Proairetic Code

The Proairetic code refers to plot events that imply further narrative action. For example, a story character confronts an adversary and the reader wonders what the resolution of this action will be. Suspense is created by action rather than by a reader's wish to have mysteries explained.

3.       The Semantic Code (SEM)

This code refers to connotation within the story that gives additional meaning over the basic denotative meaning of the word.

4.       The Symbolic Code

This is very similar to the Semantic Code, but acts at a wider level, organizing semantic meanings into broader and deeper sets of meaning.

5.       The Cultural Code (REF)

This code refers to anything that is founded on some kind of canonical works that cannot be challenged and is assumed to be a foundation for truth. Typically this involves either science or religion.

Roland Barthes five codes can be applied in the film Gothika, it is a thriller Ghost story in which a repressed female psychiatrist wakes up as a patient in the very asylum where she worked with no memory of why she is there and what she has done.

The hermeneutic code -  The mystery is how Halle berry who plays the female psychiatrist became a patient in the asylum where she works, this is then followed by The Proairetic Code- this is the part of the film where she is approached by a ghost who continues to harass her by cutting her, however  psychiatrist believe she is doing it to herself, this builds a lot of tension and suspense as it keeps the audience asking questions such as is she really crazy, how can she be crazy when she used to be a psychiatrist. The Proairetic code works together with the  hermeneutic codes as it builds tension and keeps the audience wondering about the mystery.

The semantic code-

In the film there is a scene in which Halle Berry’s character is possessed by the ghost character, Rachel; in this scene she visibly bursts into flames.  The semantic code is demonstrated when the central antagonist, the sheriff, has a tattoo on his chest of a woman burning in flames.  This image connotes, and reminds the audience of, the possession. 

The symboli code-  the symbolic code can be seen in the film Gothika in the scene before Charles s.dutton who plays DR. Douglas grey dies, with in the that scene DR. Douglas grey says to Halle berry “I love playing god” . the dialogue has a very deep meaning to it and connotes what type of character he  is as we find out at the end.  This dialogue has a very deep meaning at the time when its being said however after DR.Douglas dies, the audience begin to lose meaning to this dialogue as the DR  dies right after that scene, however towards the end the audience begin to see the meaning behind those word as the mystery begins to unravel.

The cultural code- this code can be seen in Gothika in the part of the story where the audience can see she is a psychiatrist working with patients, her working as a psychiatrist forms the basis of truth for the audience as they begin to think she can’t be crazy cause just yesterday she was working with patients, the audience use this foundation of truth to unravel the mystery of how she ended up in an asylum.

kyle copper title sequence design (Safia Shafi)

Kyle Cooper is an acclaimed modern designer of motion picture title sequences. Kyle Cooper studied under Paul Rand at Yale, and decided that he would focus on creating film titles. In 1996, he co-founded the creative agency, Imaginary Forces, which is focused on motion design. Once the agency grew substantially, he left and founded the agency, Prologue, which is where Kyle remains today. Kyle Cooper is most notable for creating the title sequence for the 1995 American crime film Se7en.
His work in the field of film title design is often compared to Saul Bass.

Other movies that kyle cooper has also worked on are the following:

·         The Mummy (1999)

• Zoolander (2001)
• Spider-Man (2002)
• Dawn of the Dead (2004)
• Spider-Man 2 (2004)
• Iron Man (2008)
• The Incredible Hulk (2008)