Welcome to the blog of Rasam Production's Asa Newmarch (The Cinematographer), charting the evolution of the opening to the new feature film "Test Drive", jointly produced with Sam Pollock (The Director) and Rob Shaw (The Producer). You'll be able to see the final cut on YouTube [will be linked on a future day] as well as various short videos and vod/podcasts right here on this blog! Enjoy, and please feel free to comment/add suggestions!

Tuesday 12 October 2010

My Top 5 Favourite Films

5. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (George Lucas, 1989)

Besides being my fifth favourite film of all time, this film is also my favourite Indiana Jones film because it has some epic moments, such as the fight scene on the tank and the story is good and enjoyable.


Budget:

$48,000,000
UK Box Office: £15m (approximately £15,088,350.74)
US Box Office: $197m (approximately $197,171,806)
Trailer:
4. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (George Lucas 1980)

I agree with all the positive reviews for this film, it's a classic. The story is memorable, the action is enjoyable and the film itself has loads of memorable moments, such as "that" moment near the end.


Budget:

$18,000,000 UK Box Office: £5.5m (approximately £5,689,498.12) US Box Office: $209m (approximately $209,398,025) 
Trailer:




3. Aliens (James Camereon, 1986)


While I did like Avatar, I personally enjoyed James Cameron's early film, Aliens much more. It is action packed, including a few scares, the plot is great and the special effects were really good for their time.

Budget:

$18,500,000
UK Box Office: £3m (approximately £3,129,330.45)
US Box Office: $85m (approxiamately $85,160,248)
Trailer:



2. Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)


Besides being my second favourite of all time, I believe this film to be a modern classic because the plot is very complex, yet engaging, the acting is very good, with solid performances from an all star cast, including Leonardo Dicaprio and the special effects are brilliant, yet mind blowing.



Budget:

$160,000,000 UK Box Office: £35m (approximately £35,264,403)
US Box Office: $288m (approximately $288,405,376)
Trailer:































1. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)

Personally, this is my favourite film of all time. Like with Inception, I consider this film a modern classic because it pushes the boundries of Superhero films, due to it's engaging performances, such as Heath Ledger's portray of The Joker, instead of making him look like a criminal prankster, Heath Ledger made him look like a psychopath. Besides that, the story was quite complex, unusual for what you would usually see in your average Superhero movie and of course, the action is thrilling.
Budget: $185,000,000
UK Box Office: £48.6m (approximately £48,685,166)US Box Office: $533m (approximately $533,345,358)
Trailer:
 

Monday 11 October 2010

My coursework task

THE BRIEF
Your mission is to carry out the following brief:

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.
Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.
All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source.

The coursework is worth 50% of the AS (same at A2) and the marking (detailed later) is divided into 3 sections:

RESEARCH AND PLANNING: 20%
PRODUCTION: 60%
EVALUATION: 20%

The work is marked based on observations of your approach and level of organisation, but its the DVD and the blog which are marked.




EVALUATION

Before you start filming your production, the evaluation needs to be in mind. If you begin blogging now, it will save you a lot of stress for May, the final deadline for this piece of coursework. During this piece of coursework, you must answer these important questions:



  • In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 
  • How does your media product represent particular social groups?
  • What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 
  • Who would be the audience for your media product? 
  • How did you attract/address your audience? 
  • What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 
  • Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
HOW ITS ALL MARKED [ie THE ASSESSMENT CRITERIA]

When all the work is being marked, a paragraph has to be written for the exam board justifying the marks. The grid embedded below summarises the criteria that has to be followed, and so you're advised to occasionally re-read this and ask yourself where you think you'll fall within the marking scheme!
For each section there are key components of the work which has to be assessed as being one of the following:

MINIMAL
BASIC
PROFICIENT
EXCELLENT
If you think you're currently at the 'minimal' or 'basic' level for any of these, ask yourself what you can do to jump up to at least proficient.