Intro paragraph

What to include?
Start with the brief - opening 2 mins of a new feature film including titles
(sub-)genre (hybrid?)
Title
Synopsis: keep info on narrative brief [what] - bin opps, n'ive enigma; dis-equilibrium?
Setting: where, when

Coens on using Final Cut for Oscar-nommed True Grit

Useful not only to put into context the work you undertake here (with A2 moving up to Final Cut from iMovie at AS), but also as a detailed example and analysis of how even at the very top level, digital technology of the sort you are using in Media Studies in a West Yorkshire school is being used by legendary, critically acclaimed auteurs at the top of the Hollywood ladder!

This comes from Apple's site, so of course is part-designed as a plug for their software and kit, but still very insightful:

Straightforward storytelling is the last thing anyone expected from the Coen brothers, more famous for tight filmic twists and dark comic turns. But in their new feature film, True Grit, based on the classic novel of the same name by Charles Portis, the Coens deliver precisely that. The movie’s narrative line is as unwavering as its precocious hero, 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), whose determined pursuit of her father’s killer in the post-Civil War Indian territories drives and directs the plot.
Making the film was anything but straightforward. The Coens, in their fashion, co-produced, co-wrote, and co-directed True Grit. They also co-edited the picture in Final Cut Pro, which ultimately gave them frame-by-frame control of its pace and direction. But before they got to the cutting room, the brothers chased the project far and wide with a trusted posse of veteran production talent.

Talk This Way

In writing the script, the Coens stayed very close to the novel. “It’s such a good story, a very simple and compelling story, about a young

Creativity + MANGeR: Everything is a Remix?

From: http://neilperkin.typepad.com/only_dead_fish/2011/02/everything-is-a-remix-.html

Everything Is A Remix

"the remix is the very nature of the digital" William Gibson

As Faris (from whom I remixed the Gibson quote above) has said eloquently for a few years now, culture is inherently recombinant. Kirby Ferguson, a New York-based filmmaker, is producing a web series on the subject. The first couple of short films are quite absorbing, and make the point very well with some fascinating examples. Worth a watch.
Part 1:

Everything is a Remix from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
...and Part 2:

Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
(HT to Rubbishcorp for the find)

Posted at 08:24 AM in culture, digital | Permalink

Creativity sans la femme + Bechdel Test

I'll add the full article below (and see the longer post on fem dirs.), but first, an extract and then a video containing a rather useful but also intriguing bit of theory (v. useful for hoovering up a few marks...):

Birds Eye View started out as a positive response to the fact that women make up only 7% of film directors (a statistic that remains accurate for Hollywood, and that has fluctuated between 6-15% in the UK over the last few years), and around 10-18% of screenwriters (depending on which year, and which side of the Atlantic). That's 6-18% of the creative vision in the world's most powerful medium. We live in a visual culture, and what we see on screen profoundly affects the way we see ourselves and each other. Film offers us an incredible thing – an immersive trip into someone else's universe, someone else's vision of the world. But if that vision is dominated by men then we are missing out on so much complexity, richness, diversity and creativity.

Here's the theory, wrapped up in a short but entertaining vid for you...