Value of Research So Far

What I learnt from research

I am trying to use as much as I can from what I learnt from watching the first two minutes of some films in my own work. Here is a summary of what I have learned so far from my research:

·         The stand out similarity between all films is that they all showed the company logo at the very start of the film which gives the film a very professional look to it and advertises the company itself. We will do this in our piece.

·          All films I watched made clear their style of film by using certain styles of music to match what we see on screen. The film ‘The Others’ did this in a slightly different way by using drawings and a voice over. Although this was a more subtle way of telling the story, it worked very effectively with the style of film it was. The lighting was low and only some things were visible, making the audience feel uneasy.

·         Another big similarity and what I have mainly learnt is that there is not much plot in the first two minutes of films - it is all about establishing characters and setting the scene. We need to be careful not to put too much plot into our piece, as we have many ideas and want to include as many of them as possible, but this might not make for the best piece. 

·         Most of the shots are establishing shots, letting the audience know the setting of the film and mainly just getting to know that characters of the film.

·         During the first two minutes you don’t want to give away the twists in the story as that is for the rest of the movie, the first two minutes is just to get a feel for the movie and to set the mood and the tone of the film.

·         Although you shouldn’t give away the story in the first two minutes, a lot of the things placed in the first two minutes are to foreshadow future events or key objects.

·         ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ does this well by using close ups of a girl intensively watching a Miss America award ceremony. This clearly shows to the audience that the film is going to be about the girl pursuing her dreams of being or going to a Miss America show. As well as highlighting this, it also gives us an insight to what the girl is like letting the audience connect with the character on screen.

·         All had non-diegetic sound over the top of the film which helped establish the mood.