The Fearless Vampire Killers Poster

The Fearless Vampire Killers (originally-Dance of the Vampires), was made in 1967. It is a comedy-horror classic. It was directed by Roman Polanski and co-written by Gerard Brach. 

The original poster was very basic with a white background with sketchy black drawing of a cartoon vampire towering over two innocent characters.  As it is not obvious to whom the well-known actors in the film are, to attract the target audience they put the starring roles in a medium simple font along the bottom with the co-star in a slightly smaller font.

The title of the film is put into one of the wings of the vampire., followed by the tagline of “OR; pardon me, but your teeth are in my neck”. This gives the poster a less serious feel, to give more of the impression that it is a comedy, rather than mainly horror.  The colour of the title text is yellow. It contrasts with the black sketch behind it. Yellow also its vibrant, so again adds a comedic edge to the poster but is also bright to attract the attention of the audience. Another element I feel adds to the comedy genre, is the typical cobwebs and spiders creeping in the corners of the poster.  The scratchy texture to the sketch adds the element of horror I think to the poster, it is like the typical scratchy music that comes with horror films. The red blood dripping from the vampire’s wings also brings the element of horror.  The border of the poster is scratchy black lines, to complement the image in the centre of the vampire. This helps to draw the audience’s attention to the contents.

The name of the film is in bold, so it stands out to the audience. The font is a typical creepy horror film font, which suggests the genre immediately to the audience. It is the largest font on the page so it is clear to the audience what the name of the film is, and so it stands out as the main point of focus juxtaposed to the other texts on the page. The font of the cast list is in a complementary colour to the orange title which makes the aesthetics attractive to the audience. The tag line is underneath in a smaller font to the main title but in the same font style, which opposes the horror genre against the comedic side of the film to portray the contrasting genres. The most famous names are in a larger font than the co-star because it will attract the audience to go and see something where they are familiar with the actors, and it could give them a brief idea of what the film will be like after knowing what the other actors are in, as the actors are quite genre specific.

The image at the top is of the main vampire killing one of his victims. The conventions that come with typical classic horror films is vampires and bats, which are all included into the poster to stand out as a horror genre. This is the larger image, as it is the most well-known scene in the film. Also it has an attractive women which would stereotypically appeal to the male audience. The female on the front is also probably placed there, as she has the most recognizable face to an audience, as she is the most famous. I like the fact that it is painted and I think it flows better with the cartoon element of the poster. the whole casts characters are painted in a sequence along the bottom, this attracts and audience as it gives them an idea of the interactions between the characters and what to expect from the plot. The character on the left of the poster in the main image, appears to be naked which gives the sense that she is unprotected and vulnerable the male character in the image. The male character in the image has grey skin which shows that he is not human and immediately presents to the audience the character. He is also wearing black with a red cape which has the conventions of evil, darkness, blood which all relate to the element of vampires within the film. His position juxtaposed to the female character is that he is at a higher angle giving the impression that he is more dominant than her. The camera angle is at more of a tilt towards the female character’s side, which gives the impression that we are on her side and we can feel more empathetic towards her.

Analysing and comparing 3 opening sequences

10 Things I Hate About You

It opens with an establishing shot to show that it is set in Seattle.

Then in the same shot zooms in at tilt to a neighbourhood where there are teens, this shows the age group that the movie is focused on throughout and also shows the appeal to the target audience of teens. There is non-diegetic music of an upbeat pop song, this sets a happy mood. This mood is abruptly switched around when there is a tracking shot showing preppy teen girls in their car, then the shot moves onto the main character, the music turns to rock music and a darker setting of the car. this is to introduce us to the main character and show the contrast of the personality of the character to normal teen girls to make her stand out as the main character in the first encounter of her. The the camera switches from a close up of the main character to a close up of the generic teen girls in the other car, this is to immediately show the rebellious attitude of the main character on our first view of her.

Breakfast At Tiffany's

It begins with a shot of a street, not so much an establishing shot, but it is quite clear that is set in New York by the tall buildings, but it becomes more clear when a yellow cab pulls into the shot, which is usually directly related to New York. From the beginning there is soft music playing which creates a calm atmosphere. There is not much sound coming from the scene and the air looks quite crisp which suggests the time of day is morning. 

Then there is a long shot of the main character, stepping out of the cab. The long shot enables you to see what she is wearing and her whole look. She is dressed in a black long dress with pearls and her hair up. this suggests that she is very sophisticated and quite wealthy, but later on we learn that her personality is not as straight forward as we first perceive her. 

The long shot then switches to a low shot, but also an over the shoulder to see what she is standing in front of. The low shot shows the building towering over her but also states the name of the place where she is. This combination of angles shows what she is so interested in when standing on the side of the pavement. 

Only after the scene is set, is the character shown closer up in a mid shot, and the title of the film shown. 

The fact that the character has chosen to eat breakfast at a shop by herself suggests to the audience that she is potentially quite a lonely character, and she uses 'Tiffany's' as company maybe to fill a space of a person. 

Similarly to 10 Things I Hate About you, it introduces a suggestion to the main character's personality which intrigues the audience to carry on watching to see why the character is like that or what more traits the character has to their personality. 

Bridget Jones' Diary

The first introduction at the film is of a lady sitting on her sofa in her pyjamas, smoking a cigarette, watching television alone. The song 'All By Myself' by Celine Dion is playing, this creates a sad, lonely atmosphere. It also just exaggerates the fact that she is lonely, but in a comedic manner unlike Breakfast At Tiffany's where there is a calm, sophisticated tone. Which also introduces the genre of the film. 

The lady goes to check her answer machine but it says 'no new messages' this just again emphasises that she is lonely. She drinks a large glass of wine, which suggests she is drinking to perhaps not think about her loneliness and numb her sad emotions. 

The shot most of the time is a long shot of her to the side in her sitting room, showing that she is small compared to the room she is in, which creates space to emphasize the fact that she has no company.  

The shot switches a few times to a mid shot, so the audience feel closer to the character and can see her emotion on her face more clearly and it creates more of a relationship between the audience and the character. 

When the angle is a long shot, the camera stays on one place, but the character blurs out and flicks to another place in the room. This shows time passing as the character does different things, which aren't productive. which shows that she is just trying to make time pass.

As the build up of the song begins, she imaginary plays along to the song, with tears on her face, hitting every beat, which suggests that she is very familiar with not only the song but the situation that she is currently in.

Some similarities which i picked up on in all three films, was firstly that we get a good sense of personality from each of the main characters in each film, but not too much to give away all of it. I think this intrigues the audience to watch on to find out more about, perhaps why the characters initially behave the way they do and just find out more.

I think loneliness is quite a predominant theme within all of these films as well, especially in the opening sequences. 

Some differences that I picked up on was that firstly, all genres are different. In Bridget Jones' Diary and 10 Things I Hate About You, the genre is portrayed quite obviously whereas in Breakfast At Tiffany's it is not obvious to what genre the film is in. This makes the film more intriguing to the audience to carry on watching to find out more about it.

Camera lessons

18/9/14
Today was our first lesson on using the camera. Firstly we learnt how to use the tripod. we had to set it up then learnt to level it by using the bubble, which meant that it wouldn't be at an angle when filming. We then learnt how to set up the camera onto the tripod, and make sure that it is secure. we looked at the different points on the camera and where to adjust the zoom, focus and exposure. One of the main things we learnt was to adjust the white balance to the surroundings. Firstly you have to zoom in to a completely white subject so that the screen is filled with the white, adjust the exposure so that there are only a few zebras, then press the white balance adjuster, then zoom out. The purpose of this is that you are basically telling the camera what pure white looks like in that lighting, so it can adjust the rest of the light in all the shots.

25/9/14
Today we learnt the 180° rule, where you tape a line in front or to the side of the subjects of your shot, where you can only film behind that line and not cross over it, but you can film along and at different angles from behind.
We also learnt that you should always shoot the same sequence at lots of different angles, when only filming with one camera. You need to film the same sequence at different angles because when it comes to cutting and editing, it adds a dynamic to the shot by changing the view to the audience. One thing that is important is continuity, so each take of the sequence in the different angle has to have each part of the scene is exactly the same. Markers can be used so that each time the character in the shot is moving they go from the exact same space in each shot.

Favourite Film Review-St Elmo's Fire

My favourite film I have chosen is St. Elmo’s fire. It was made and released in 1985. It was written and directed by Joel Schumacher, and also written by Carl Kurlander. The film is a prominent movie of the ‘Brat Pack’ genre. The term ‘Brat Pack’ was given to a now infamous group of young actors who appeared in many teen-oriented movies in the 1980s – a large proportion of which were directed by John Hughes. The film stars; Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Mare Winningham and Ally Sheedy.  A lot of my favourite films are typical ‘Brat Pack’ films as I find that the plot lines are usually quite loosely structured. I like the idea of a loose plot line, especially in St. Elmo’s fire as I feel the film is more realistic in the setting that is being portrayed. I feel it is easier to develop an emotional attachment to the characters because you see the life that they are living in together, from all points of views of each character within the story. This creates empathy with the characters as you see why they act in the ways that they do in relation to one another.

St. Elmo’s Fire focuses on a group of 7 close friends who have just graduated from Georgetown University. The film centres on their post-university lives and the struggles the individuals have with responsibility and the transition from University to adulthood. The close-knit bunch of friends includes all the stereotypical types of teens of any era. I think that is one of the reasons why it is my favourite film also as it is quite relatable being based around characters only slightly older than myself and it portrays all the concerns that any teen would have transitioning from teen to adulthood.

Through the Eye, thriller sequence, tension analysis

Throughout the first sequence of 'Through the Eye', they use non-diagetic eerie music to create a creepy atmosphere to the audience and to create tension which will build up to shock the audience at the end. They also used diagetic noise to set the scene of the everyday life. It also makes you feel like you are there with the character, seeing from his point of view, which later on builds tension because the audience feel like they can almost do something about what the man is missing, but they cant which will frustrate, because you are seeing what you can see he's not.
This occurs when the man has a quick scan of a few of the screens but then he picks up his newspaper and isn't actually paying attention to his job and we as the audience know he is going to miss something when not paying attention.

We also see one of the screens behind him has something going on, both of the main characters, in one of these screens, have some red on them self, which firstly, makes the character easily identifiable and also comes with the connotations that he is potentially dangerous or a threat to the near future. The fact that the screen is behind him is reinforcing the fact that the man, who is meant to be paying attention to these screens, is unaware of what is going on and is going to miss out on something that we can see.

When they are doing a close up of four of the surveillance cameras, it makes the audience look for something, like they are trying to pre-empt the ending because they know something bad is going to happen because we are trying to look again for what the man is missing. Then the camera begins to zoom into a particular screen out of the four which makes us think that as we cant already see something in the screen that we are going to get a shock for what we are about to see, which builds tension. In fact this is just the camera tricking you into thinking that your going to get a shock so your guard is down, so you get more of a shock when the girl is taken/killed.