Individual Research on Institutional Logo

Main stream film companies like mine have institutional logos that stand out and seem drawn, Just like Columbia Pictures. I will take this technique on to my logo to make it interesting for my target audience. These mainstream logos are similar because they stand out even though they are quite simple.

For my logo I will make it stand out and become quite iconic because i am a mainstream company I will use good software to create my logo. Such as adobe fireworks, which specialise in creating good JPEG and GIF files.

My Institutional Logo

This is my logo for my film company, i designed it in this way to make it stand out and be remembered, my intention is to have this logo floating while"Narwhal Studios" is floating below it. This may make it stand out to an audience. The logo is a Narwhal with a blue background behind it because it comes from the sea this makes it purposeful because our logo matches the name and has meaning.

Similar Films To Mine and How To Attract Audiences

Black Swan (2010) is a film similar to mine as it is a psychological thriller about a girl who is mentally ill but loves ballet and it follows her journey to be the best of the best, this is similar to mine because Ethan has a psychological illness and it follows his journey. The differences between this film and mine is that it is focused upon the girl and her love of ballet where as in mine it focuses upon not just Ethan but Vicky Hilling and Michael Staines as well. Also both the storyline narratives are different which is good because it makes my film original in this genre.

These are Black Swans (2010) box office figures:

Budget:

$13,000,000 (estimated)

 

Opening Weekend:

£2,762,429 (UK) (21 January 2011)

Gross:

$106,952,327 (USA)(29 April 2011)

This shows that if my film is successful it can attract a mass audience and bring in a huge profit. The film focuses on attracting its target audience by following the life of a ballet dancer, this immediately attracts anyone that has done ballet or does ballet and they may want to see it. It also focuses on a young girl so this focuses on teenagers as they may feel connected to her. This is similar to mine because I focus on my characters and try to make them similar to my target audience.

Another film that is similar to mine is Pain is Beautiful (2012) which follows the life of a character called William who is a heavily scarred loner who was born with a rare disorder called CIPA, Congenital Insensitivity to Pain. He feels no pain and no pleasure. This is similar to mine because Ethan has a psychological disease and focuses upon this in my piece.

Extra Research On Equipment and Film

To help myself gain further understanding into the production of film, I went on a film set with some Univeristy students. While I was there I did various jobs such as holding the boom mic, using the clapper and doing log sheets. The boom mic is a microphone attached to apole to capture sound, they sue a microphone to sync up sound becuase it is in better quality and sounds clearer, sound is then synced up in editing. The clapper is a white board that tells you the scene, take and various other information, it is used to sync up the sound and the video with the sound of the clap. Log sheets are used for the editing process to let the editor know what clips worked well and to help in the editing process on what takes to use and what the video and sound file it was.

Also while I was there I learnt a lot about the research and planning process to the actual film because various locations were used and to find these locations the crew went out and searched for what places can work well and also whether or not they can film there.

I found out about the kind of equipment that was being used such as a dolly and track which was used for a tracking shot down a hallway and various other shots.


I also learnt about the various cameras such as the Panasonic camera that was used for normal shots such as mids and tracking but for close ups we used a Canon camera to get a nice quality close up with blurred edges. I also learnt about the various actors that were scouted for using websites, which were then cast specifically for looks age and style.

Timeline of Psychological Thriller

Distributor Company (Fade In) 0:02-0:15 (Fade Out)
Distributor Company (Fade in) 0:23-0:28 (Cut)
Distributor Company (Fade in) 0:30-0:34 (Cut)
Title (Fade In) 0:40-0:46 (Fade Out)
Actor (Fade In) 0:50-0:54 (Fade Out)
Actor (Fade In) 0:55-0:59 (Cut)
Actor (Fade In) 1:05-1:10 (Fade Out)
Actor (Fade In) 1:20-1:24 (Fade Out)
Actor (Fade In) 1:24-1:28 (Cut)
Actor (Fade In) 1:28-1:32 (Fade Out)
Actor (Fade In) 1:33-1:37 (Cut)
Actor (Fade In) 1:38-1:42 (Fade Out)
Actors (Fade In) 1:43-1:47 (Fade Out)
Actors (Fade In) 1:48-1:52 (Cut)
Casting Director (Fade In) 1:59-2:03 (Fade Out)
Costume Designer (Fade In) 2:04-2:09 (Cut)
Visual Effects (Fade In) 2:09-2:13 (Cut)
Music (Fade In) 2:13-2:18 (Cut)
Editors (Fade In) 2:19-2:22 (Fade Out)
Production Designer (Fade In) 2:23-2:27 (Cut)
Director of Photography (Fade In) 2:32-2:36 (Cut)
Executive Producers (Fade In) 2:38-2:42 (Cut)
Co-Producers (Fade In) 2:51-2:55 (Cut)

From watching the clip I can see that a psychological thriller opening, work the titles around the scene which is something I will bring forward to my film. Also by looking at the timeline we can see that a lot of the titles cut away instead of fade out, this again is something that I may use in my piece because I feel that its entertaining and sharp to the audience putting there attention on the titles but not to much that it takes away whats happening.

Analysis of Film Openings On My Genre

The genre to this piece is clear because the low key lighting connotes that it is some form of thriller. The narrative to this story is unclear as I feel you may need audience foreknowledge to understand where the film is going from this point but the black swan could connote it being from Swan Lake some form of ballet dance. The characters are again unclear but we see quite a feminine hand holding the crayon so it could be a female character in this.The atmosphere is quite soft yet the loud strokes of the piano can sound quite sinister and the background sound behind the piano of some kind of wind makes it creepy.

Themes in this piece may include some kind of dancing because the music connotes some musical and possible some drawings because of the drawing of a swan. The setting is unclear but it may be set on stage because the piano connotes a kind of musical. The non-diegetic sound of the piano makes it sinister and also the smashing of the glass scares the audience connoting their to be some kind of horror in this. The titles are integrated around the piece to keep the audience focused on what is happening, the font is also like the drawing making it significant to the piece.

Research Into Chosen Genre

My chosen genre is a psychological thriller. I chose this genre because I felt it was an under used genre and found figures for other movies in this genre made greate profits such as Black Swan (2010) that made £2,762,429 (UK) (21 January 2011) on its opening weekend. I also chose this genre because i had many good ideas involving a boy with a psychological disease which I knew would appeal to a mass audience.

Things that I must consider for my genre are the generic conventions used. For a psychological thriller, it uses conventions of mystery and suspense to keep the audience wondering what is going on, this is good because it attracts both a passive and active audience because an active audience want to make there own assumptions while a passive want to enjoy the suspense.

It also usually follows the life of one character but for my piece I want to break this convention by following the life of 3 main characters I believe this is a good idea because it can attract a wider audience as they may feel connected to any one of the 3 main characters.

My Remake

This is my remake of the film opening to the film Memento: