Hot Fuzz Research and Planning- Comedy

Hot Fuzz is a 2007 British action mystery comedy film directed and co-written by Edgar Wright, and co-written and starring Simon Pegg alongside Nick Frost. The three had previously worked together on the television series Spaced and the 2004 film Shaun of the Dead. The film was directed by Wright and produced by Nira Park, and follows two police officers attempting to solve a series of mysterious deaths in a small English village.
The two actors are seen as the most important characters in the film as most camera time is on them, different camera shots are used on them to add affect e.g. Two shot, shot reverse shot, over shoulder shot and others.
The plot of the film is about an extremely dedicated police officer called Nicolas Angel (Simon Pegg), he excels in everything during his duties until he is told to move away to another department due to the Metropolitan Police Service feeling left out on action as he arrests majority of the population that cause crimes and problems. The small village he is moved to is called Sandford, A village which has won the prize for 'village of the year' many times in a row. Sergeant Angel then goes on to make a bond with a fellow worker 'Danny Butterman' (Nick Frost) who nearly ran Sergeant Angel over at their first encounter. Once realising Danny also worked at the station they grew closer after a series of deaths shocked Angel, being staged as 'accidents'. Sergeant Angel interprets these as murders and investigates them to only find out that they are all run and organised by key characters in the film. This twist in the film adds suspense for the viewers and intrigues them to continue watching. It is then a massive investigation for both Nicolas and Danny to arrest all people involved and return the village back to harmony and natural incidents and contents.

 

The bad people named themselves 'The Neighbourhood Watch Alliance' and it consisted of 'Timothy Dalton as Simon Skinner, Edward Woodward as Tom Weaver, Billie Whitelaw as Joyce Cooper, Eric Mason as Bernard Cooper, Stuart Wilson as Dr. Robin Hatcher, Paul Freeman as Rev. Philip Shooter, Kenneth Cranham as James Reaper, Peter Wight as Roy Porter, Julia Deakin as Mary Porter, Patricia Franklin as Annette Roper, Lorraine Hilton as Amanda Paver, Tim Barlow as Mr. Treacher, and Rory McCann as Michael Armstrong. They are all individually arrested after Nicolas and Danny both take on the whole village with gun and violence mayhem and a lot of action is involved. The village is then returned to being run by natural encounters and not by an alliance which are unsure of whats right and whats wrong.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

In our video clip, we used various camera shots e.g. Over shoulder shot, two shot, a slight birds eye view, close up shot, a long angle shot and many different shots. We used mise en scene by using a few props e.g. telephone, and Emma wore smart clothing to suit the scene of the interview. We used very good match on action which helped our video look more professional.
The camera was kept very still very well by Bryony which was good so it wasn't confusing for viewers. We also used the 180 degrees rule so it didn't confuse viewers and they understood where both Emma and I were and that was hadn't switched positions. Our ediding was quite good despite the click of the cut from the scene of the camera, we could have cut it out a few miliseconds before but it's not essential, and there was a point where James disappeared from us cutting the scene too early and we didn't acknowledge it, besides that our cutting was quite good and editing overall was very fluent.
In the video, some of the camera shots were taken from above Me and looking down on Emma, this gives the impression that i'm more important than Emma in the respect that i'm the boss and she would be the interviewee. We used plenty of shot reverse shot which is a basic technique but very affective in these sorts of video clips. Most camera time was spent on Emma which suggests to the viewers that she is the most important and key character in the scene.
Overall I think that our video clip was a good use of all techniques and uses of a camera and we tried very hard to make it as fluent and professional as possible.

Step Brothers- Research and planning- Comedy

Step Brothers is a 2008 American comedy film starring Will Ferrell and John C Reilly. The screenplay was written by Ferrell and Adam McKay, from a story written by them with Reilly. It was produced by Jimmy Miller and Judd Apatow, and directed by McKay.
The plot of Step Brothers is two middle aged men that still live with their parents at home, Brennen (Will Ferrell) with him mother, and Dale (John C Reilly) with his father. Their parents meet coinscidently and fall in love at the surprise of their similar lifestyles. Both sons are forced to live together and the conflict between them at the start is negative, which relates to the maturity levels of the individuals. Their parents warn them that they must find jobs within a month or else be forced out of the house. When Brennan's younger brother Derek (Adam Scott) comes to visit with his oddly perfect family, he too mocks them and entices Dale to punch him in the face. Brennan is awed that Dale was able to stand up to Derek. Meanwhile, Brennan's sister-in-law Alice (Kathryn Hahn) who is also resentful of Derek, finds Dale's courage a turn on. Brennan and Dale discover their many shared interests and develop a strong personal bond.
The attempts at the job are poor from both Brennen and Dale, and they find themselves only disturbing the relationship of Nancy and Robert (Parents) which results to a divorce. Once this has happened both sons get a job and move on with their lives, Brennen goes and works for his brother Derek, and Dale becomes a chef.
They then meet again at a festival hosted by Brennen as his new job, and the food is cooked by Dale which links the whole family back together as they both invite each of their parents making Nancy and Robert force conversation. The family is then restored through a musical performance from both Dale and Brennen as the band previously set up were forced to leave.

The film contains a lot of mixed humour which many different people can relate and connect to, even the fact that both 40 year old Dale and 39 year old Brennen still live at home with their parents immediately adds a humourous background and start to the film.

Preliminary Task

In a few lessons of the course, we were told to upload a short entry to a filmand describe it and what you can see in the clip uploaded. We have been learning about various shots and angles of the camera and what effect it discretely has on the audience, we learnt different techniques and styles of these shots e.g. Shoulder shot, Medium shot, Long shot, Two shot etc.

We were lucky to manage to borrow and office that wasn't in use as that would probably be where an interview would take place. We had to keep refliming as we would all be in different clothes and it wouldn't look fluent and would confuse viewers. We also had to refilm as some of the time

We (James, Emma, Bryony and I) chose to do and Interview of me being the interviewer and Emma being the interviewee, James participated earlier in the short video, as Bryony filmed it from different angles and produced different shots. All the lessons we spent making the video came to around 5, which means we spent roughly 5 hours on it, this is included editing as well to cut out all of the problems and faults with our video. We attempted to make the video as realistic as possible by showing emotion of the what the real life situation would look and be like, e.g. Emma feeling nervous and me looking organised and professional.

We decided on doing an interview because we thought we could get the most shots in and more oppertunities to get more marks.

Saving Private Ryan is a film based on World War II, Tom Hanks is the main character and the movie is mainly about walking through occupied France to find a person called Private Ryan. Through the movie you see them risk their lives to find Ryan, who they are sending home because all 3 of his brothers have sadly been killed in action. This cliche happens many times in action movies/war movies, where they are putting their own lives on the line to save one another.

In the first 2 minutes (the scene shown above), we see a war going on between two sides, The Americans and The Germans, This is a cliche in action where there are two sides fighting, expecially in war films such as this. In this opening scene we see blood, blown off limbs and lost companions. This is very common in action films such as this one and this is also a chliche as it is very common in majority of war films.

Research and planning

There is no evidence of research and planning.
Make sure you upload your preliminary task.

You MUST have at least 8-10 posts on here by next Tuesday, including:
- Analysis of at least 4 different genre openings (analyse how mise-en-scene, sound, plot convey genre to audience)
- Preliminary task diary
- Preliminary task evaluation
- own ideas mind map - what genre? plot? etc
- Analysis of at least 2 openings of films from your chosen genre