The Shining - Opening Sequence Analysis

The opening sequence of this film reveals very little. The entire sequence consists of helicopter shots following a car along a mountain road. The mise en scene displays a picturesque landscape, with no apprehension for disorder. This is completely juxtaposed with the ominous music. The deep drones build an uncomfortable tone and make us relate feelings of isolation, loneliness and horror. Our expectations of a conventional horror film would be unappealing scenery, with dark lighting. This film completely subverts the typical conventions as the landscape is appealing and set during broad daylight. This tranquillity established in the mise en scene settles the audience and therefore the imminent horror will come more as a shock. Our perspective of the mood and atmosphere is highly influenced by the music. The menacing bellows distract from the beautiful landscapes and instead make us feel uneasy. The entire sequence is formed using establishing shots, these are to convey, setting, mood and atmosphere. In an unconventional way, through simply a shot of a car driving along a mountain road, this sequence does establish a slightly strange, apprehensive and uneasy mood. Through the careful composition of the shot and the placing of the car isolation is emphasised. In addition, other important production information is established through the the use of text. We understand this is a Warner Bros film as we see their trademark. This logo is held for an uncomfortable amount of time, forcing there brand into the memory of the viewers. 

Typography is used to create feelings of distortion. As the camera moves foreword the text moves up the screen. This makes an audience feel uncomfortable as it is not something that usually happens in a film. The effect further highlights the loneliness and isolation. The Genre of the film is not obvious through the opening sequence although from the music we suspect the thriller/horror genre. 

The arrival at the old abandoned house confirms these suspicions.This is a very conventional location for a horror film. The isolation and abandonment of the old house makes the audience sense that this is where things will start to go wrong.
In summation, very little happens in this sequence. It is simply a car driving through the mountains, despite this, Stanley Kubrick (The Director) creates suspense and sets an immediate eerie and dark tone for the film.

Introduction to using cameras

Today's lesson was spent in the Studio with Matt and Phil. Here we were given a short introduction to the use of Camera and Tripod. The camera we used was a Sony NX5

This advanced piece of filming equipment costs around £2,500, although this may seem expensive, for a professional camera this is quite reasonable. As well as learning how fix the camera to the tripod, inserting the battery and turning on the camera, we were taught 4 main functions: focus, zoom, exposure and white balance.
Focus: this is adjusted using the first wheel on the lens of the camera. A useful technique that enables the operator to achieve sharp focus on the subject is setting up the shot then zooming in as close as possible to the subject, ensuring the focus is clear, then zooming out again.
Zoom: This is adjusted using the second wheel. This camera has a 20x zoom allowing brilliant close up shots.
Exposure: This can be adjusted using the wheel closest to the camera. Exposure refers to the amount of light in the image. If there's too much light the shot will become over exposed and very bright. if there's not enough light it will be underexposed and very dark. for extremely bright shots there are three additional ND (neutral density) filters that can be added in camera.
White balance: This is adjusted using a small switch on the side of the camera. There are too settings for different types of lighting. For example tungsten lighting will require a different white balance to natural sunlight. The aim is to make the colours look the same on camera as in real life.

Here is an image from our lesson:

Saving Private Ryan - Presentation

Saving private ryan - presentation from hurtwoodhousemedia5

Introduction

Hello, my name is Ben and welcome to my Media studies AS level Blog. Here you will find an interesting and detailed documentation of my progress over the following year. Firstly, a bit about myself: I was born in Leeds, where I have lived my whole life. From an early age, I took a great interest in Performing and At the age of 13 I was accepted into the Sylvia Young Theatre School where I trained in performing arts whilst also completing my gcses After Choosing media for one of my GCSE options I grew a great passion for filmmaking. I began making short films during my spare time such as music videos, thrillers and documentaries. With my short films I managed to win 2 film competitions and I hope for my future career that I could eventually become a DOP or a cinematographer.

Linked here are two of my films:

Room 7 (thriller gcse media): http://youtu.be/uhY4WHOgstA

Lovers eyes (music video): http://youtu.be/Eoo8QSNupnc

more of my films and photography can be accessed on my website:

http://www.benradcliffe.co.uk

 I believe A level media will be an exciting prospect and an important step in allowing me to achieve this goal.