BFI Trip!

Trip to the BFI!

For part of my research for our Media AS, I had the experience to go to two separate showings in London. They helped me engage and better my understanding on how to create a perfect film opening for my chosen genre; Horror.  

Trip 1

The first trip was really helpful for our coursework. We got to ask questions and meet Dexter Fletcher! On this day we watched 3 of his film openings, "Eddie the Eagle", "Wild Bill", and "Sunshine on Leith", and looked at different ways of creating opening of a film, to show off our skills. 

We had the opportunity to listen to a talk on the curriculum of our coursework, by Tom Woodcock. We were given helpful tips to ensure we have a successful film opening. For example;

• Controlling shooting space/area.
• Planning well in advance, so we have planned and chosen alternatives for the following; cost, costumes, technology, locations etc, encase something goes wrong.
• Think ahead
• Build up skills
• Story board
• Be constant with lighting
• Keep it Simple and accurate
• Be flexible with props, actors, location

• Include as many known skills
• Stick to a constant colour palette.
• Don't make credit fonts to big

DAY 2

During this talk we learnt about; power Social groups, The Dominant Social group we learnt to look out for ;

- Males

- White Citizens

- Middle Class Citizens

- Middle aged Citizens

- Heterosexual Citizens

- Abled Bodied

We then looked at how the media promotes Black achievements.

We watched the following music video;

-BEYONCE, Formation

From this video I noticed the following;

• Black children & black American are shown as powerful.
• Mixed Races shown
• Some scenes linked to 'Male Gaze'.
• The following lyrics; "Negro", "Afro", Alabama".
• Beyoncé contradicts herself from slutty to smart and formally dressed. 
• Different classes shown; Rich and poor.
• BEYONCE's VIDEO WAS ICONIC IT CONTAINED THE MESSAGE "I'm over being a pop star, I don't want to be a hot girl, I want to be iconic".

I took notes on important REPRESENTATION& REPETION& NATURALISATION factors;

• Repetition of images, stories, media events, make them seem familiar.
• Idealised women & male body images are used in media
• Representation is an important concept for 'realism'.
• Stereotypes of view points are viewed as normal
• Producers manipulate the audience.