Storyboard VS Screenplay

I enjoyed the task that involded making a storyboard because I do like being artistic within my work but I am not very good in depicting my thoughts through images. I am also not the best at deciding which type of shot should go with which scene. On the other hand, the storyboard allowed me to get creative and imaginative and to illustrate these sides of me which can't be expressed as thrououghly in a script compare to this. I believe that making a storyboard is better if you have a creative mind and you are able to put your ideas down on to the page as detailed drawings.

I found the script more enjoyable than the storyboard because I could easily express what I had in my mind through words much better than through drawings. I had a good mind set on what I wanted to do in the script and I believed that I achieved it. I find that writing dialogue and a description of a scene were much more fun and much easier because they allowed me to use a wider vocabulary and experiment with different descriptions of a scene. I find that the way a script is layed out is much simpler and more effective than a script, this is just my opinion, but I find them a lot better than a storyboard because they are universal, everyone can read and write but not everyone can draw. This makes the script a bit more accessible than the storyboard.

Based on the trials of both methods, I have chosen to go with the script because it is more versatile and much easier to portray ideas through. I feel that I could achieve a better grade with a script purely because it has no limitations on dialogue, idea portrayal.

Target audiences of five films

Friday the 13^th:

In the trailer of this film I can tell immediately after watching it that it is aimed at the older teens, between 15-19. I can tell this because of the music that is playing at the start, it is quite upbeat and modern, and it sounds like music that would be used at a teenage party. The next hint to the target audience comes with the actors, they are all older teens that have gone to get away from their parents to have a good time, and the sexual references made in the trailer clearly point this film towards the target audience. But there is a scene where this all changes and the teens are put into your typical horror dilemma, trying to escape the wrath of Jason, this is where the genre is clear to me because he is stood with a hockey mask, huge stature and great presence.

 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre:

The start of this trailer is near enough the same as the first that I analysed; it shows a group of people in their late teens driving along a road with music that is liked by that age group. In the van we see the sexual references like we see in Friday the 13^th, the people are getting intimate like in the previous trailer. This type of people appeal to the teens between the ages of 15-19 because of how the characters are portrayed and how the music links with their age. As the scene moves on, we see another side to the teens as they stop to help a woman and this is where the horror genre is established and reinforced because she says ‘They’re all dead’. The teen horror theme then comes into play as all the foreseeable circumstances come into play, for example; they find the location of the murderer unknowingly and are drawn into a wild run around to try to escape him.

 

Scream:

There is no road trip in this trailer but we can still get the common codes and conventions of a teen film because the first character we see as a girl in her late teens who is home alone and answers the phone to her killer unknowingly. The dialogue right from the start establishes the genre because the person on the other end of the phone talks about scary movies and how he wants to know his next victim. The typical party scene is next and is full of teenagers drinking and making sexual references. The trailer establishes the target audience easily by following the codes and conventions of its predecessors.

 

 

The haunting in Connecticut 2:

The trailer starts gleefully with country music blaring from the family’s car, they are all happy and enjoying their new home. I think that what establishes this as a late teen film is the plot and context of the film. It seems believable and doesn’t use gore, I think that is the main reason it is seen as a teen movie because there is only ‘jumpy’ parts that will get them on the edge of their seat. There are a lot of parts to this trailer that make it a horror and establish its audience even more, this ties in with the target audience because it has all the codes and conventions of your average teen horror and uses them all in its favour to attract the target audience.

 

The cabin in the woods:

Just like some of the previous trailers, the film starts with a bunch of late teen heading off on a trip, with the typical upbeat music of today to accompany them. The codes and conventions are clear, alcohol, drugs, sexual references; all these establish it as a movie for those between 15-19. As the trailer progresses we find that they have stumbled into their own demise, and the establishment of the genre comes into play as we see a variety of different attempts to murder them. The typical codes and conventions and the mise en scene are extremely clear and very predictable from a film in this genre.

Brief summary of my plot

A psychotic mad-‘man’ escapes from prison and is compelled to kill. He has no reason for his murders and has no recollection of them, all he knows is killing.

Les Miserables task

- How did the script introduce the narrative (story), setting, time period, the characters and the genre?

Using a superimpose caption, the writers introduce the year as 1815, after the French revolution as Napoleon has fallen and France is ruled by a new king. The next part gives us very rich insight into where the film is set, it tells us of the port in Toulon and how the naval war ships are fighting against nature. This gives us a depressing sort of atmosphere, which suits the next part of the script. The weather plays a big part in introducing the character called Jean Valjean, it tells of how he just stands there as he is up to his waist in water, walking in rhythm with everyone else but he is resilient to the lashing rain. They call him a ‘great brute of a man’ which proves his resilience to the weather. The singing then comes in and clearly sets the genre as only musicals really have parts in films that are like this, the singing also sets the narrative as it links heavily to and is sung by the prisoners that are under the command of Javert.

- How did it engage you?

Firstly, it engages me by giving me a very detailed and good description of the weather and the location of the place. It gives me a good indication of the poor conditions that the prisoners are enduring; it gave me a sense of empathy and put me in the prisoners’ position. As the script moves on, it reaches a climax of tension where we are given a deep description of this brute of a man, doing his job and completely ignoring the weather, this engages me with the harshness of some of these men as they are some real hardcore prisoners. The sheer presence of Jean Valjean was enough to engage me because of the way he acts, for example ‘Valjean stares back for a beat, defying him. Then he drops down into the seething water and re-emerges with the great mast in his hands. You can picture in your head this big man lugging this huge ships mast from the water.

- How did the film clip introduce the narrative (story), setting, time period, the characters and the genre?

The film clip follows the script almost exactly, the biggest introduction to the time period and setting, it uses text that is quite big and in the middle of the screen which reads ‘1815 26 years after the start of the French revolution A king is once again on the throne of France’ Another good indication of the time period is the way the prisoner are linked with heavy chains and are forced to pull in a warship that uses a sail, this is a good indication that it is pre-industrial revolution. It firstly sets the narrative, I believe, with the camera slowly but surely zooming in on Jean and watching him endure the weather with great power, and as he starts singing we get an even deeper view on the narrative because it is confirmed that he is a prisoner. The characters are introduced in ways that have been used in movies for years, when Jean is introduced to us; the camera gives us a quick look and then swoops away as he gets battered by the waves which show how he isn’t very powerful at all at this moment in time. Contrasting with that, Javert is introduced with this slow zoom from below him which suggests status and power and the light that is behind him seems to be breaking up the storm which suggests he is kind of omnipotent. With the camera being very much focused on these two, the narrative gets clearer because we know that there is something between these two.

- How did it engage you?

Firstly, it engaged my by the strong orchestral music that plays as the text rolls off of the screen, this music is very powerful and brings my thoughts right to the man in the next few shots. The music is very tense and creates a good strong atmosphere that does Jean justice of his size and stature. The music also fits the lyrics that come in because they describe the hard life of a prisoner. The way the weather doesn’t affect the prisoners engages me very well because I know that it would definitely affect me but I still empathise with them and imagine how I would do. The shot types are also very engaging because they provide a wide variety of perceptions of the scene in front of us, it puts us in the shoes of different people and this means we get to see what is going on from many different angles and it produces many different views and feelings, purely because of the shot types. The fact that it is musical in itself is very engaging because you can join in with the songs and sometimes it is a lot easier to portray emotions and scenes through music and lyrics.

Media Text

I regularly use xbox games such as FIFA 13, Halo 4 and CoD BO:II but my favourite and most enjoyed is Halo 4 because it has a unique multiplayer experience and gets you so immersed, it works just how they wanted it to. It appeals to me because I have been a fan of the franchise since 9 or ten.