kidulthood analysis

We watched 'kidulthood' and had to analyse the first ten minutes of the opening scene.

There were a lot of close up shots to show the actors reactions as it was quite a violent film which was quite helpfull as it then showed us who were the main characters etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shsBkmx5oQY

The image below shows a close up shot of a girl doing a pregnancy test from one of the scenes from 'kidulthood.' A close up shot has been done to show her facial reactions. This is a good shot to use as it really shows the reaction of the girls face and her expressions towards what is happening.

Media terminology

Close up - A shot showing a character from the neck up. Used to show facial expressions.

Medium shot - Showing a character from the waist up. allows other characters to be in view so allows character interaction sociable shots.

Extreme close up - Focus on a small detail. E.G. Eye, hand

Long shot - A shot showing a character or setting from a distance.

High angle shot - A shot taken from above looking down. Makes the audience feel powerful and superior and the actors small and vulnerable.

Low angle shot - Shot taken from below. It is as if the audience are being looked down on. May make s feel small and vulnerable and the actors powerful.

Panning - Camera moves in an arc from a fixed point.

Tracking - Camera is on tracks and follows the action.

Zoom - Camera moves into a close-up, often used to focus attention on a relevant detail or emphasises a characters reaction.

Diegetic sound - Music/sound effect that comes from the scene of the film.

Non-diegetic sound - Music/sound effect that is added to the film during editing.

Mise-en-scene - Everything in the frame. E.G. colours, props, set, costumes, lighting.

Denotation - What you can see.

Conotation - Implied meaning.

Preliminary Task Part One

• Last lesson we got our preliminary exercise, this task consists of practising the skills needed for the main practical production assignment. 
• The attempt of this task is to film and edit a character opening a door, crossing the room and sitting down in a chat opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanged a couple of lines of dialogue. 
• In this task we had to demonstrate; Match on action, shot/reverse shot and finally the 180 degree rule.

• For this assignment I worked with Katie Coombs and Sarah Barnes. I will be working with this group for my main practical assignment, as i feel that we work well as a group, each and everyone of us contributes to ideas and finally we all get on well as a group.

• So far on the making of our preliminary task my group and I have filmed the scene of our video, I found that this was a successful task to film and trying out different camera shots and angles, even though it did take us a while of working out how the video camera works but we soon got the hang of it. 
• We haven't yet completed the final assignment as there is still editing to do. So far this task has been succesful however, whilst filming my group and I were finding it hard to keep to the 180 degree rule as sometimes we wouldn't be sure wether or not we had gone over. 
• In our group we decided to make a script for the dialogue which meant it was easier for the characters to know their lines and wasn't having to make it all up on the spot.

Editing the preliminary task

• Today my group and I looked over our preliminary task and decided to change a few things. We have decided to include shot-reverse-shot between the two characters Sarah and Kate. 
• We edited more on the scenes we had, cutting the scenes so there was no jumps to make the overall effect realistic. We will have one more lesson on filiming our preliminary task tomorrow and then our task will be finished.

• Unfortunately one of our group members has decided to leave school, so there is now just Kate, Sarah and myself. We are having to get use to the group as just being the three of us, and completing the task without yaz.

• Overall the lesson went well and my group and I decided on what to change and what else we needed to include. Our preliminary task will be finished tomorrow and ready for the upcoming lessons.

Preliminary Task Filming

Filming our preliminary task today went really well. Yasmin was recording and doing the different angles/shots with the, Emma was opening the door and exchanging dialogue with Katie and I.
We started off  by trying to get the right shot for opening the door. We decided that when Emma opens the door to zoom in on her hand twisting the door handle to show that she is actually opening the door.
The next shot was Emma walking through the door and then over to the table were we chose to do a tracking shot.
Then showing Emma talking we switched to an over the shoulder shot.
Sitting down with Myself, Emma and Katie, exchanging dialogue, we decided to do an over the shoulder shot to show speaking.

Preliminary Task

• Today in the lesson, my group and I had finally finished our preliminary task. This task had taken us five lessons to complete, two being used for filming and 2 for the editing. 
• I found the editing quite difficult to get the hang of, especially cutting bits of the scene as I have never used any software like that before so it is all new to me. 

• For our preliminary task my group and I decided to go to the library to film our scene, as we felt that it would be a quiter place to film. This worked out well as we managed to find useful props to use to make our scene look more realistic for example, Newspapers, paper, pens etc. 

• For the last filming and editing lessson, I had to step in and take the leading role of filming, as that was yasmines part in the task and as the last bit of filimg of the shot-reverse-shot I did not need to be included in the filming.

• We used different camera angle shots such as, over the sholder shot when the characters are talking, A close up of the character opening the door, which would also be used as an establishing shot to show that the character is about to enter a room and is where the scene is taking place. A long shot to show the character walking over to her friends and finally shot-reverse-shot of two characters having a conversation.

• Throughout the whole scene there was diegetic sound which was visible from the voices of the characters. From the first few seconds that you see in the scene is the character opening the door, the use of synchronous sound is used from the opening of the door.

• Overall I feel that my group and I worked hard on our preliminary task, as we felt that we all worked well together and enjoyed filming the scene and editing it, and adding in non-digetic sound such as, music in the background to give the scene a more realistic vibe.