How Barthes Narrative codes changed our planning decisions

Hi everyone, Today I just thought that I would talk about Barthes Narrative codes which is something that I have previously talked about on my blog. I will be talking about how these codes changed some of our planning when it came to filming our thriller opening.

These codes were we think easy to add into our thriller opening and some we didn't realise that we already added. However putting some in did not change the story of our thriller opening and didn't overtake what we were trying to show the audience. 

We tried to add as many of these codes that we could to bring our opening together more and to try and make sure it made sense to the audience.

For example, a code that we think we used best was the semic code, mystery code and the code of opposition.

As you will already know from my previous blog post, we used clips of black and white war planes and graveyards to portray that this film has an aspect of the past to it. This also shows the audience that war and death are a big part of what our film is about as well.

We used the mystery code by leaving our thriller opening on a 'cliff hanger' and starting the title montage straight after this. The 'cliff hanger' ends with the girl finding an old war document about her Grandads past which we believe will make the audience carry on watching to see further of what this means and what it brings.

The code of opposition we think we used very well in our thriller opening although at first we didn't realise that we had put it in. We think that we used this well as our opening titles contain clips from the past and the present which refers to old v new, telling the audience that our film is a mix of both.

Barthes Narrative codes

click the play button to load the clip below

personal roles

 

• To play a part in my production so far  I have been the main actor in the film while Tammy has been in charge of the camera.

• Both me and Tammy have made the props that we used together.
• Tammy has done most of the editing on our thriller opening, however I have helped her find resources and give her ideas. (We have also always made sure that we agree on something before adding it to our film).

• I have been in charge of the blog posts that have been shared between me and Tammy. These include a Target audience mind map, a film poster, explaining the narrative of our thriller and location and costume ideas etc..

• I think that both me and Tammy have 'pulled our weight' in helping to create our thriller opening as we have both took roles in which we think we can work best on. (By this I mean that we know what our strengths and weaknesses are and have took on the roles that we think we can do best) However we have also helped each other with our roles so as we both had a say in what was being done.

During the making of our thriller opening, we also both agreed on important things such as settings as in our film we use quite a vary of different settings so as the viewer doesn't get bored.

 

I think that by working in this way with specific roles we have found it easier to manage everything that we needed to include in our film and the research and planning that goes towards it. This was an advantage as me and Tammy are in different media groups meaning that we had different lesson times, therefore by giving ourselves specific roles we knew what we had to do when we went to our lessons.

 

Although we have not been working together in lessons, me and tammy have been using lunch times and after schools to work more on our editing and to see whether we both agree on things such as effects applied to our film.

Titles in our thriller opening

Just an update...

I just thought that I should let you guys know about the titles that we are using in our thriller opening.

First of all, me and Tammy have looked at other thriller openings including past student ones and 

decided that we were going to use a simple font with a simple effect on it. We have been doing that 

as we thought that they looked better in the thriller openings that we had seen and also we thought

that these titles looked more professional than others we had seen. Here are a couple of examples from

our thriller opening thatshow the type of titles that we are using...

Thriller teaser poster

Here is a teaser poster for our thriller opening 'What Can't Speak Can't lie'...

As you can see, I have overlapped two pictures, one being a photo of 'The Girl' who is a main character in our thriller, and the other being a picute of some war planes. 

This has been done to show that our thriller film is based both in the past and present and also that the key theme of it is war and the negative effects that it has on people, particually the 'War Hero' Grandad in our film. 

To give the impression of the past being a big part of our thriller, I have also made our poster in black and white to reflect something old such as photos which in the time of war were black and white.

After I had the main picture that we used for our background on this poster, I added the writing and decoration using https://www.fotor.com/ 

This is a way in which our thriller film is going to be promoted in order to try and aim at a larger target audience.

Thriller soundtrack

The website that we used to get our sound and music from for our thriller opening was... https://www.freesound.org/  , which is a website that allows you to download music and sounds for free without the issue of copyright.

We used around three different tracks and sound off of this website to make up the sound and music that we need for our whole opening.

A little extra filming..

Hi everyone, just thought that I should give 

you an update. Sadly, because Mr Welch decided

that he didn't like the argument that we shot between

me and my Dad i had to go home and film more,

tragic. ;)

This Day of filming wasn't that exciting so I don't really have 

much to say apart from thanks for reading :)

Props

During the making of our thriller opening the props that were used were either items that we already owned or what me and Tammy made. 

Here of some of the significant props that were used...

The article

Here is the fake article that we made for when the girl finds it in the attic of her Grandmas house. This is the last part that is shown in the opening scene before the titles so as the audience have to wait until after the titles to see what happens in the rest of the film.

The Photo Frame

For this we used the same old looking photo shown on the fake article above and put it in an old looking frame which had dull colours (We already owned this frame). 

This is the photo which the girl takes to her Grandmas when leaving her own house. 

The old box

This is the box which was used as the one filled with the girls granddad's old belongings. As you will later get to see in our film, we filled it with old looking things such as books and coins to give the impression that these belongings are from an older generation (Her granddad's).