The End Task

The End Task

 

For this I’ve decided to choose one of the main character of my Found footage film that I would like to make for my FMP (explained further in section 2)

Character Profile

Name: Michael Cooper

Sex: Male

Age: 27

Nicknames: Mikey, Coop, Cooper

Profession: Cop/Detective

Family: Wife

Hobbies: Pool/Snooker, Football, Socialising, Swimming

Character traits : Ambitious, Courageous, Honest , Loyal, Loving , Leader , Young , Smart , Protective , Rational , Picky , Innocent, Brave.

Views on death: He isn’t scared of dying but is scared of losing his family

Views on sex: Only with his wife. He is very morally grounded and is teased by it.

Views on Chicken: If it’s cooked he will eat it.

Story points: His drive for success may lead to trouble for him and his family

Heres My Infographic of the character

Treatment for FMP

For my final major project I would like to focus on making a found footage genre  based film, this would be made to look real but is staged.  This film would have elements of the scare factor that exist in such films as ‘The Blair Witch Project’ (1999) and ‘Paranormal Activity’ (2007)but instead of the story revolving around the paranormal it would focus on a real life serial killer. The back story of the film would focus around a YouTube user that frequently uploads videos every week. The YouTube user is becoming more successful with their channel and begins to notice some weird activity occurring in their videos. After a series of videos the YouTube user realises that they are being stalked by a creepy character, firstly it looks like an obsession then it turns in to something more sinister.

After trying to get more evidence the YouTube user suddenly stops posting their video blogs and mysteriously disappears. Is there missing footage to be found? Footage that would possibly reveal the whereabouts of the YouTube user? Or show something more dark and sinister about the stalker?

The film would take place as an investigation piece to try and find the whereabouts of the YouTube user. It would include original footage and footage from cameras that have yet to be uploaded and then footage film the exact same way of the department continuing research themselves on film.

The police investigation starts as a missing person case but as the film goes on they realise that there is a lot more to this suspect that they know. The film touches on other cases the suspect is linked to and how the killer has an obsession for film himself. We find out that the killer thrives off being watched and the more dangerous the situation the more he enjoys it.

The police man and his family become the next obsession for the killer and he starts to make a film of his own about the investigation towards him.  is the killer alone? or does he also have a wife that’s involved?

Is this film an investigation of an investigation? Are we watching this film after the detective has figured out who the killer is? Or are we  the investigation in to the death of the detective? How many layers is there and how many people are filming what’s happening? Will the YouTube user resurface again during this film?

This film has the possibility to become a franchise . The footage could all come together over a series of films to form the story of the serial killer . We have lots of  ways of capturing footage ,for example our cameras that we own, to our camera phones, our web cams , security footage in shops and buildings all over the city, there are even drone cameras . There are so many different ways of being watched,  anybody can be watching and that idea  scares me. I would like to warn people about what could happen in a very realistic way.

I would like to leave this film on a cliff hanger as I like the idea of this film becoming a franchise and telling the audience about the characters involved in a clever and interesting way. I would like to tell the story of the killer before he starts stalking the YouTuber , then the story of the Detective hunting the killer , then the aftermath.

References

 

 

Fitsnews.com, (2014). Campus Shooting In South Carolina. [image] Available at: http://www.fitsnews.com/2013/02/27/campus-shooting-in-south-carolina/ [Accessed 25 Oct. 2014].

Paranormal Activity. (2007). [DVD] United States of America: Oren Peli.

 

The Blair Witch Project. (1999). [DVD] United States of America: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez.

 

 

 

Chicken Task- United States of America/1991/Cinema

For this next task I have decided to look at United Stats of America in 1991 and focus on Cinema. In 1991 I was seven so its interesting for me to look back and see what I can remember from this time period.  I was looking at British Cinema at this point of time , however British Cinema really doesn’t start to flourish in my opinion until the late 90’s. Looking in to the films coming out in America there is a lot more to talk about , In 1991 this was the year of the release of some great films.

Heres a list of sum of the films in the cinema in 1991 in America.

• Terminator 2: Judgement day(Cameron,1991)
• The Silence of the Lambs(Demme,1991)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves(Reynolds,1991)
• The Addams Family(Sonnenfeld,1991)
• Point Break(Bigelow,1991)

The list of films above are some of the most groundbreaking films in history.

Terminator 2 :Judgement Day 

One film that I would especially like to talk about is Terminator 2: Judgement day(Cameron,1991)as this is not only a great film it  also featured  great technological advances

( T-1000 Regenerates above )(Googleimages,2014)  using visual effects that still look great today.

“This film won the year’s Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, defeating Backdraft (1991) and Hook (1991).

Terminator 2 was the first mainstream blockbuster movie with multiple morphing effects and simulated natural human motion and realistic movements for a major CG character. It was the first film to use ‘personal’ computers to create its special effects.

The lethal, liquid-metal, chrome T-1000 cyborg terminator (Robert Patrick) was the first computer graphic-generated main character to be used in a film. This was the first major instance of a CG character in a film since Young Sherlock Holmes (1985). He was capable of ‘morphing’ into any person or object. The liquifying-solidifying robot’s humanoid texture was layered onto a CG model to create the effect. Over 300 special effects shots made up 16 minutes of the film’s running time.”(Filmsite.org.2014)

Not only doing great things visually in American Cinema but also creating films that would have huge cult followings , for example Point Break(Bigelow.1991) is a classic film with a cult following . Then we have Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Reynolds.1991)a film that I personally remember from my childhood , mainly for the Bryan Adams rendition of ‘Everything I do’ (Adams ,1991)which topped the english charts for a whopping sixteen weeks. The movie did well globally as well and was one of the biggest grossing films of that year along side Terminator 2:Judgement  Day ( Cameron,1991).

With this being said this was the direction of American Cinema and these types of films were there mainstream approach, these films were a great addition at cinemas all over the world. But  What countries challenged American Cinema at this period of time?

When we talk about quantity the only countries that really rival The United States of America are as follows: Bollywood, Hong Kong and Australia. They all produced high volumes of films in 1991, that doesn’t mean they produced the same quality films that I discussed earlier in this post. I’m obviously not saying they are not good films i would just have to sit and watch them. From reputation I haven’t heard of most of them.

I think this is an area of time where there wasn’t a great deal of competition from around the globe. United kingdom were just about to come in to there cinema and United States of America were still rolling out great pictures after the 80s which was a big era for film.

You could say that the 80’s as a period of great success in cinema may of been hanging over the shoulder of Filmmakers in the early Nineties , it may have been considered a hinderance or burden to them.The quality of film continued though , i still get the feeling it may have been an issue. In fact it just made film keep up a great standard you can see from the list of released films that year and thats only a handful of films theres some other gems in there that I haven’t mentioned to.

 

This era of cinema in 1991 is just before even more great films that are about to come out such as Jurassic Park(Spielberg,1993).  I think thats maybe its biggest weakness is that America needed to continue it’s motion from the success of the 80s and keep the films original, while progressing in to a more digital age in Cinema .

 

Adams.B.(1991) Everything I do

 

Bigelow.K. (1991) Point Break . United States of America.Japan. JVC Entertainment Networks.Largo Entertainment.

Cameron.J. (1991) Terminator 2:Judgment Day. United States Of America. Carolco Pictures. Lightstorm Entertainment. Pacific Western.

Demme.J.(1991) The Silence of the Lambs. United States of America. Strong Heart/Demme Production.Orion Pictures.

Filmsite.org, (2014). Visual and Special Effects Film Milestones. [online] Available at: http://www.filmsite.org/visualeffects14.html [Accessed 13 Oct. 2014].

Googleimages, (2014). [image] Available at: http://tudor3x8films.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/terminator-2-judgment-day.html [Accessed 13 Oct. 2014].

Reynolds.K.(1991) Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.  United States of America.Warner Bros. Morgan Creek Productions.

Sonnenfeld.B(1991) The Addams Family.  United States of America. Orion Pictures.Paramount Pictures. Scott Rudin Productions.

Spielberg.S. (1993) Jurassic Park. United States of America.  Universal Pictures. Amblin Entertainment.

Sexism in Hollywood Cinema

Sexism is a big social issue that is constantly debated and spoke about in social media. My interest is how Hollywood Cinema still depicts sexism by constantly undermining and under paying their female stars , but why is this? What difference is there in a male portraying a character on screen and a female portraying hers? especially if they are CO stars of a film or TV show. How often do we see this happen on screen? is this still a generalisation that happens in Hollywood or has it calmed down and became more open? What I find interesting is that sexism even occurs in sex scenes .

Hilliard (2009:219) speaks about Sexism in  Hollywood Cinema and refers to some films showing females to be objects of lust and cleverly tricking the lead male. He goes on to state that in most cases a woman is used as a stereotype showing her in The usual representations  and jobs that women are un realistically known for.

 

Gillian Anderson star of X-Files and Hannibal recently spoke about the topic and spoke about the differences between her and David Duchovny.

“At the beginning, the pay disparity [between David Duchovny and me] was massive. But that happens all the time in Hollywood,” she said. “It’s, ‘Do this for me, I’ll get you a job.’ All the stuff in the papers today about people in entertainment who have abused their position. There are things that are intolerable in today’s world in terms of the perception of women. Whether they’re vamps or vixens, the expectation is that, if a woman is wearing a short skirt, she’s ‘asking for it.’ “ (Anderson, 2014)

Gillian is explaining that the idea of a woman in a short skirt is labelling her in a certain light. A woman in a short skirt in Hollywood would imply that she’s available? Or just appears that way to the other characters and the audience.This is a picture with some interesting facts about how women are portrayed on screen.

A study about gender equality in film.( vagendamagazine.com, 2014)

On that note do we really expect that when we see a woman or male for that fact acting a certain way on screen that we are not going to as an audience interpret and replicate the behaviours of our idols? Even if it’s subconsciously? TV and Cinema is apart of most of our  lives, we mimic our idols and what the ‘new cool’ thing is to do that week.

So when a woman is seen to party hard and sleep around a group of male friends, in a film that can be viewed by 15 year olds? is that the right perception of a female ? or male for that matter? In my opinion our whole perception of what a woman or man is supposed to be is influenced by the media. Social Media shows us what a woman is supposed to look like and girls will bend over backwards to be like these idols and what happens when newspapers post something trashy about a star? do we then copy that too? of course we do and this is where the term life imitating art comes from. Our Life imitates the life of the stars.

This is an interesting point about the film Charlie Countryman , now If this scene was a man instead of a woman the film would still have that sexual content scene. Why is it any different  if its a woman receiving Oral sex?  Gaynor explains further here

“Along with gender roles, the depiction of female sexuality is another problem inherent in films. Very recently, actress Evan Rachel Wood exploded over Twitter in response to a sex scene being cut from her upcoming film, Charlie Countryman. It appears the only reason the sex scene was cut by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), was because it featured a man giving Wood’s character oral sex. If this ‘offensive’ scene hadn’t been cut, the film would have received the highest possible rating in the US (NC-17), meaning it was less likely to be shown at theatres and make money.”(Gaynor ; 2013)

This is extremely interesting as its not anything to do with how the scene is graphic as its just as graphic as when a male receives this. The only difference is that people are not used to seeing it. Although people are used to seeing woman on woman sex scenes for example  ‘Orange is the new black’ and ‘Black Swan’ but its not ok when its a male doing it to a woman?  what does this say for female sexuality its just another sexist view in my opinion , its just another way of trying to push females in to being less excepted and this sort of thing will always happen. This is just a couple of examples I’m sure if we dive in deeper we would find hundreds of cases of sexism in Holywood Cinema .

 

 

 

Anon, (2014). [image] Available at: http://lipmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/gender-inequality-small.jpg [Accessed 4 Oct. 2014].

 

Hilliard, R. (2009). Hollywood speaks out. 1st ed. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell.

http://vagendamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/genderfilm1.jpg, (2014). [image].

Gaynor, C. (2013). 2013 and gender inequality in film | film | lip magazine. [online] Available at: http://lipmag.com/culture/2013-and-gender-inequality-in-film/ [Accessed 4 Oct. 2014].

Rahman, A. (2014). Gillian Anderson on the “Intolerable” Sexism in Hollywood, Society – Hollywood Reporter. [online] The Hollywood Reporter. Available at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gillian-anderson-intolerable-sexism-hollywood-737533 [Accessed 3 Oct. 2014].