Film Pitch

Before starting to film our short film, we had to present a film pitch to our class so we could gain feedback from them. This could help us potentially improve our ideas that we have so far and it can help us on certain aspects that we are not totally sure about (e.g. the name of the main character and the title of our film). We recorded our film pitch which I have embedded from YouTube. It can be seen below:

Camera Angles, Movements & Shots

In our group, we made a number of films that clearly showed certain cinematography techniques. We then edited the film on Windows Live Movie Maker; putting all the separate films together, merging the connected techniques and adding music. The techniques we covered include:

• Worm's eye shot
• Tilt
• Pan
• High Angle Shot
• Tracking
• Shot-Reverse-Shot
• Arc Shot
• Handheld
• Eye-line Match
• Graphic Match
• Match-on-Action
• Cross-Cutting
• Trombone Shot
• Frame-within-a-Frame
• Time Compression

The finished, edited film can be seen embedded from YouTube below:

Short Movie Storyboard

For the opening scene of our short film we created a storyboard using post-it notes. We included the shot types, camera angles and what occurs in the scene. We then took pictures of the post-it notes, individually and created a film on Moviemaker. This film was then uploaded to YouTube, which I embedded. This can be seen below:

The Importance of Genre

Barthes Codes Applied To The Radio Trailer

I am going to evaluate my radio trailer and apply Barthes codes to each of the following:

• Narration
• Music
• Sound Effects

Narration:

We used a large amount of narration throughout our radio trailer and within two of Barthes codes are featured: hermeneutic and referential. Firstly, the hermeneutic code is used when you can hear the narrator saying "coming this fall". This would create an enigma as the audience would want to know more. Secondly, the referential codes can be found when well-known film District 9 and well-known actor Sam Worthington are mentioned. This would intrigue the audience as they may be a fan of that particular film and/or actor.

Music:

The music used in my radio trailer shows the symbolic code. It does this as it signifies immediately what genre the film would be; and this is thriller/sci-fi/horror. The chosen music shows this as it has an eerie, spine-tingling feel to it. The audience may be fearful of the music, but the chill they would receive from it would definitely make them want to see the film.

Sound Effects:

I feel that the sound effects I chose to feature within my radio trailer are very affective and are crucial as they portray a number of Barthes codes. First of all, the howling of the wolves shows both symbolic and hermeneutic codes as wolves usually symbolise danger and violence; plus the audience may begin to question whether this sound is used to show that the character could be in peril within the film. Hermeneutic codes are used again with the classic creaking door sound, and the opening of the door, plus the weird, unearthly sounding noise at the end of the trailer. All three of these are referential as they portray sound effects of a typical sci-fi thriller. Finally, the sound of a male panting as he seems to be out of breath. This creates an enigma as the audience will be wondering why: Could he be running from something? Thus the hermeneutic code is present. As well as the proairetic code as he could be possibly being chased by the wolves.

Radio Trailer

To create my radio trailer, I used the software 'Garageband'. Which was a software that was unknown to me; however, I became well acquainted with it after a short period of time and had an enjoyable experience on the software. For the trailer, I based it on the Outsider task. However, I changed the narrative to a suited genre, the chosen genre being Sci-Fi. The radio trailer can be seen/heard below, as I have embedded it through SoundCloud: