Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Image Production Preparation Plan
Platform: Print TEXT: Movie Poster
What is the content/angle /tone of this text
Creating a movie poster for a novel that shows some subtle subversion in relation to the characters but stays true to the tone of the novel, which is dark and edgy. It is to look like a professional and real blockbuster movie poster that is going to be released. |
What images do you need to take for this: - * Remember not just people
Image 1 (Describe it) An emperor slouching on his chair looking bored in his robes, with little light shinning down on him making him seem powerful in contrast to the darkness around him. | Requirements (who/ location/outfits/props) Sixth form student wearing his robes slouching on a chair, using a church as the background with stain glass windows. |
Image 2 (Describe it) Emperor is with Thea character looking like they are arguing about something. Both look angry but woman looks like she is about to walk away. | Requirements (who/ location/outfits/props) Same sixth form student playing emperor but another friend playing the role of Thea, she is wearing a dress. This will take place in a corridor but there will be dim lighting but now the light shinning will be on the girl. |
Image 3 (Describe it) Thea and Lepida standing back to back giving each other evils. Dressed looking nicely with a stain glass window in the background. | Requirements (who/ location/outfits/props) Friend playing Thea and another friend acting as Lepida. Both girls will being wearing dresses and I will put makeup on them to make them look nice and ethereal. |
Image 4 (Describe it) A close up of Thea looking into the horizon. And another close up of her looking straight into the camera with her hair flowing. | Requirements (who/ location/outfits/props) Friend playing Thea, she will be wearing a different dress want London background behind us at night because of the way the city looks at night time with light. We will need a fan to blow the wind so that her hair flows. |
* What other images/(symbols/logos or anything else) do you need before you can start putting it all together.
Image 1 (Describe it) Warner Bros Logo | Where will you get it from Use the internet and crop it so that it looks genuine. |
Image 2 (Describe it) The writing for the title | Where will you get it from Create it on Photoshop |
Production Plan
Week | Assignment | What I need to do |
23-28th January | Image production plan, mock ups | Fill out the image production grid. Get a clear image of what I want to do. visit locations get the costumes ready |
30-5th February | Take the photos for the movie posters. | Make sure everyone is free and at the location. Dress them up and make sure the costumes look right. And get a lot of photos. |
6-13th February | Photoshop | Photoshop my images and make them look good. And in all the detail that is normally on movie posters like the writing on the bottom and logo. |
14th -23rd February | Write evaluation Redraft essay | Compile all my work and evaluate it. Add in parts to my essay and fix it. |
Friday, 13 January 2012
Intentions statement
My linked production piece for my CI will be the movie promotions for a book that I am going to convert into a movie. The book that I have decided to change into a movie is called the Mistress of Rome. That tells the story of a slave girl who turns into a singer who catches the eye of the Emperor who is overly paranoid fearing assassination by everyone except his mistress, who turns out to be his downfall. For this production I am going to have a range of movie posters and use different characters for the posters. It will be under the Warner Bros institution. As it is one of the major production companies that would be able to spend a lot on promotions and would have a huge budget for this film which I think would turn into a block buster like Sparta, which normally come from huge production companies.
I am going to conform to the codes and conventions of movie posters with the little details such as things like the institutions logo and titles. Normally when a book is converted into a movie the actors that are used hardly conform to what the characters in the book look like, instead for my linked production I am going to use people who naturally fit the images of the characters in the book. The book itself has quite a dark and dangerous tone to it, so for my posters I am also going to make the lighting quite dark and dim to allow it to look quite depressing and dangerous.
As the setting of the book is in Rome I am going to go round to places in London that have a roman feel, with places that have pillars that I can photo shop to look very roman and old. There is a little section in Somerset House that has pillars and looks Romanized, which I want to use as my setting. I am going to use two females that can act as the main characters and rivals in the novel one with blond hair and the other with black characters and two males with the same hair colours. I am going to dress them up so that they look like Romans, with circlets and robes and sandals.
Due to Warner Bros being a huge institution and the book itself having good sales revenues and all the attraction with films like Sparta and the Titans sales figures for this film should do quite well. Even though this narrative is less action and more scandalous the promotions and the sales revenues that other films get from being set in those time frames seem to be quite popular these days.
As well as finding the setting I am going to need to use a very good camera to make sure the pictures come out clear and I am going to need to use photo shop to edit them and allow them to look real so that they look like they were done by professionals.
C.I Redraft
The converging worlds of Literature and Film...
Pride and Prejudice, Gone with wind, and the Invisible Man all great examples of classical literature that have been turned into film. However, gone are the days when the great classical novels had such a strong hold on the film industry; Nowadays we turn to popular culture with production industries jumping head long and divulging into the bestsellers list fighting for movie rights, turning novellas into motion picture; a record breaker being the Harry Potter series which has sadly come to an end after a decade of fame. It was first released in 2001, and its successor of fame being Twilight, which is now entering into its final stage with its last film to air in November 2012.
Film adaptation is the transfer of written work into a film; common forms of film adaptation are novels. Pride and Prejudice is a piece of classical literature, which has been turned into film. The book has attained a position of being one of the most popular novels in English Literature and has received much attention. Even though the novel was written in a different time frame it still holds much reverence with the modern audience of today, continuously being nominated near the top of the 'most loved books' list such as “The Big Read”[1]. Pride and Prejudice “has become one of the most popular novels in English literature, and receives considerable attention from literary scholars”. [2]
Therefore there have been a number of adaptations ranging from literary texts such as “Mr. Darcy’s great escape” by Marsha Altman published in 2010, to comical film adaptations such as “Bride and Prejudice” directed by Andrew Black in 2004.
Yet till today we have novels like Harry Potter an exceptional enticing extraordinary piece of work, with its film series not just gripping the nation, but the world for the last decade.
The book series attained more popularity, which was generated by the film production that came to light in 2001 with Harry and the Philosophers Stone. The outbreak of the fantasy genre has been intensified and become more enjoyable due to the advances in technology allowing for great special effects. Recently the Dracula “cycle” has become increasingly popular with T.V dramas such as Vampire Diaries and True Blood becoming huge hits, this has proven popular with blockbuster movies like Twilight that have rocketed to fame due to the internet and more exposure. The Vampire phenomenon is best represented through its virtual presence on the internet, with detailed stories, discussions and debates, the Twilight form has a space where they even “discuss and converse on topics that have meaning that transcends the twilight universe” [3]
All in all literature and film are both telling a story, the only difference being one is accompanied with visuals while the other causes you to use your imagination, and with this they both follow narrative theories. Propp argues that “it is possible to group characters and actions into eight spheres of action, the villain, the hero, donor, helper, princess, princess father, dispatcher, and false hero”[4] Which can be applied very well to the Harry Potter series because Harry Potter is obviously the hero, Voldemort is the villain, the donor and the dispatcher being Dumboldore, the helpers are Ron and Hermione and the princess is Ginny. “Propp’s original study worked with fairy tales told in times when many women died in childbirth, and the role (wicked) stepmothers could be a shared reference point for audience”[5] which could be related to Harry Potter in a modern twist with it being Harry’s aunt and uncle who are seen in a more negative image in the novel.
Turning literature into film has become the norm; we all expect a bestseller to hit the movie screen. With this production industries are more inclined to find good literature texts to turn. It has been said that “With so few stories to tell it’s inevitable that every film has a narrative displaced from somewhere else”[6] it is even said that “The Lion King is Hamlet in Africa” we are able to see with classics such as the Lion King even narrative displacement is popular. Many people believe that ideas are never original and influence is taken from elsewhere, which is continuously happening in the film industry in thus constantly causing novels to turn into films.
However how is it that production industries decide to turn certain books into films?
“To interest studios in the relatively conservative atmosphere of Hollywood it will probably need to be supported by evidence of previous success associated with the ingredients of the proposal”[7] The institutions and the heads behind a certain film can also make an impact on its sales due to the names a film is associated with, a prime example is Warner Bros a huge production industry, films generated by their company are normally blockbusters and due to the institution producing many great famous films such as Harry Potter and Dark Knight which have become so famous and both have become record breakers. Dark Knight set records raking in $1,001,921,825, being named film of the year, only to be overturned by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows breaking that record with a show stopping $1,328,111,219. With Warner Bros making such popular movies it is bound to have its own fan base where people will watch the film because of the institution but not what the film is about in particular. This shows the power of branding and institution in influencing society and media consuming habits.
It can be said that J.K. Rowling the woman herself is an industry with the Harry Potter brand earning excess 15 billion. With J.K Rowling involved with every aspect of the Harry Potter franchise, and maintaining creative control by serving as a producer on the final film and approving the scripts. She has been noted the “most influential woman in the UK”[8] who has led a “rags to riches” life story and is now estimated to be worth $1 billion.
It is inevitable that when someone has seen a film and has read the book, they will compare, we state when parts are different or when parts haven’t been added and we are never satisfied with the end result. Even though the narrative is the same we tend to compare and contrast two different things. We must remember that movies are motion picture whilst books allow us to create our own worlds in which everything seems perfect. Yet when we see a movie we tend to become dissatisfied, as we have already created a perfect image in our heads that the film doesn’t match up to.
Movies are a single interpretation of a text from a director’s point of view. Both movies and books have pros and cons in comparison to each other. Books entertain us for a period of time whilst movies allow you to feel entertained for an intense two and a half hours at most; some may prefer movies as it isn’t time consuming whilst books are, whilst others may prefer books as they allow you to enjoy yourself and be entertained for a long period time. Even with advancements in technology it is still less likely that you will be sitting on the bus watching a movie, yet we are able to sit anywhere and read a book weather its on the bus or train, in which we are transported into our own mini worlds. Books create realism and escapism, which allows us to escape reality despite being surrounded. When a book is converted into a movie there is always this comment that “the movie left out so much” however we have to come to accept that with a minimum of two hours to tell the whole narrative, the movie is most likely to cut parts out. But how is it that the director decides that some parts are more important than others, or that other parts don’t need mentioning?
In the Harry Potter film series the character “Peeves” isn’t even mentioned when in the novel he appears in all the books and plays the role of the trouble maker. This is a classic example of one of the cons found in the depiction of novels into movies. What is it that made the directors decide not to transfer his character from the book to the film? Maybe they thought that even though he appears in all the books he doesn’t bring about much change, and doesn’t act as catalyst. Furthermore seeing as he does not move the story along, there is no use for him in the film which is needed to fit into the space of two hours.
The Harry Potter franchise has had such a huge impact on the world, with sales of the book exceeding over 400 million in June 2008. The novel peaked at a phenomenal amount of people turning into the excitement for the film. When the first Harry Potter novel was written J.K Rowling had a flash of clairvoyance and in the novel stated “every child in our world will know his name”[9] the impact that the Harry Potter franchise has gained so much popularity this statement has become true.
Romantic narratives are able to draw women in easily “Ideologically it is suggested that the particularly close and caring attention paid to women by the male hero provides female readers and viewers with a fantasy escape from the often inattentive men they are actually involved in”[10] which is something referred to as the “maternal male”.
The “maternal male” has appeared in classics with macho figures like Rhett Butler in Gone with Wind (US 1939) but also with characters today such as Edward Cullen in Twilight. Such intimacy is normally shown through close-ups, especially focused around the eyes of both male and female actors. Women who have read a book and are able to feel that fantasy escapism are probably more inclined to watch a movie version as it enables them to feel that escapism again but in a different kind of way.
The converging worlds of literature and film over time have made a huge impact on the world. The novels have impacted the lives of people in so many ways. The popularity of the Harry Potter books even after the ending of series has caused the website Pottermore to emerge sponsored by Sony. It is to be the permanent online home of the Wizarding World in Harry Potter. A Survey from Waterstone's reveals that “children and teachers alike believe that Harry Potter has had a significant impact on children's literacy levels in the UK”[11] they have brought a positive impact on children’s literacy skills which have only been brought about by a children’s book series. The Twilight saga has also had huge impacts on fans that it has even come to the point where a 49 year old woman tattooed her back with the Twilight characters to “show her appreciation for the Twilight universe”[12]. We can see that the films are having a huge impact that they are literally affecting adults, not just the youth. This seems brazier as the youth are seen to be doing things radical and be obsessed with movies. However we are starting to see the older generation do this too. From this we can see that the film industry has helped dramatize literature and has allowed the narratives of the books to be expressed in different way thus reach a wider and more diverse audience.
In the world today nothing is original, something is always displaced from somewhere else however what makes a product standout is the ways it is presented. Some narratives are so influential that they have to be viewed by masses of people. Yet there will always be pros and cons when turning literature into motion picture. The new direction in which literature is heading towards with so much focused on fantasy, action and horror, has allowed our blockbuster films to head in that direction too. Even though literature isn’t something followed much by the population today, movie productions always run head over heels to gain the rights to them, although many people may not see it literature has a powerful hold on the film industry.
[12] http://news.softpedia.com/news/49-Year-Old-Woman-Gets-Twilight-Tattoo-All-Over-Her-Back-176932.shtml
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