final treatment

aLice
aLice is a film that can capture a myriad of people due to the combination of chick-flick, action, fantasy and adventure. It tells the story of how a girl can defend herself from physical pain but how does she deal with emotional hurt?

• Title: What the title means and where the idea came from
1. aLice: We chose this title as it gives clues to the plot. Firstly beginning our main protagonists name but emphasizes on the letter L indicates it’s an anagram for another word. (Lacie)

• Character: all the character involved throughout the film, their relationship to each other, and the individual personas and appearance.

1. Alice: Being 18 years old and being rejected due to her social unawareness is one of the hardest thing to overcome for a teenage girl, being completely dismissed for her physical efforts towards fashion masks her secret talent towards designing and creating fashion. As though being rejected from the London school of fashion was not enough, she had a myriad of other problems to face. Her parents have always seen their daughter to be strong and tough but when she realised it for herself, this was the making of Lacie! Personality: intelligent, under confident, shy and quiet. Appearance: glasses, blazer, polo neck top, straight boring hair.

2. Lacie: (alter-ego) you would not believe she shares DNA with Alice, as they run completely opposite lifestyles in every aspect. Her problems suddenly don’t seem so bad; her new life ignores them until bigger ones appear, when she is faced with emotional pain that she so desperately tried to avoid, has found her and it is all down to her best friend. Personality: confident, fashionable, outgoing. Appearance: tight, revealing clothing, bouncy shiny hair and lots of make-up.
3. Duke: He is the captain of the football team and he is completely in love with himself. Everybody knows his name and wants to be his friend even Alice is madly in love with him, she has been for what seems like forever! Lacie on the other hand has suddenly caught his eye and took his mind of the pitch, but how does Alice feel with her new found self Lacie?

4. William: Ever since primary school, William and Alice has been best friends and shared everything, they have so much in common, both being social misfit they find themselves confiding in each other. Personality: envious, educated, shy. Appearance: typical geek, glasses and big curly.
5. Villian: when William turns into Alice/Lacies evil opponent, he appears to be presented as a Goth, the connotations of the colour black typically represents a sense of evil and danger. He uses the weapon of emotionally hurting Alice/Lacie because he is fully aware of her physical defence against pain


• Act 1:
Describing the difference and similarities between alice and lacie, presenting the characters in partiular alices life.
Difference in costume and persona between alice and lacie.
Showing alices school and home life to create a relationship between the audience and the characters.

• Act 2:
All of the conflicts and problems that occur
Becomes obsessed with her power and need to help.
Confused with who she is.
Falls out with William, he becomes jealous of her talent.
His dark side shines through when he attacks her through emotional hurt.

• Act 3:
Resolving the problem, alice finds out williams true intentions, and confronts him.
Chooses who she wants to be, alice or lacie?
and leads the life of ...

Villian

Our superhero villain?
After researching films of this genre we can across a relation in all of them that the villain is someone that is closer than they suspect...
  The majority it is a close relative or friend.

too portray this the spiderman films are a prime example >

1st: Best Friends Dad

< This made us think shall we have someone that aLice knows of but  not necessary close to.

2nd: Best Friend 

3rd:Himself

Alice's Villain > WILLIAM- william is alices best friend, they are both outcasts in there lives, and depend on each other, normally get on so well. When william gets jealous, he acts upon his feelings. knowing he physically cant hurt alice, he attempts to reach her emotionally. Simliarly to spiderman she also is herselfs worst enermy, confused over her true identity, it becomes an obsession to find herself.

Comic book cover

BEFORE FILMING SOMETHINGS WE NEED TO DO:


At the end of our film opening, one of our props that highlights the title of our film is a comic book cover reading 'aLice'. We gathered this idea from how superhero films originally come from comic books, so we wanted to use this element in our movie.

comic book inspiration:

How we made our comic book...
First idea:

• Gathering images and extracts that expressed and explained aspects of Alice and Lacie's life.

the Effle tower to show the treat of moving to France
Fashion Drawings to show her love for designing
pink and girly thing then in contrast books and intellectual
photos of her and tickets from places she has been
hearts and stars to express her girly side
All of this will gather together to create a collage of alice/lacies life in a comic book fashion.


Ideas of layout for background of comic book:

overlapping collage ideas :

However, after our photo-shoot we decided to make a comic book cover using the photos of out protagonist instead, this has proven to work well, this is our outcome:

Idea Development

What codes and conventions have I identified:

I have tried to convey in both the codes and conventions within the story line, costume and personality of our main protagonist. The characters appearence follows the conventions of the power of portraying her femininity, through her slim figure, girly and revealing outfit. However, we also wanted to add our own twist of using her Geeky aspects and turning them into a superhero costume. The codes and conventions have been shown through the story line as you are given clues but not to much information and the start. Similarly to spiderman, you will see her making her costume, through this you are given her personality and persona. at the end of the 2 minutes you have an indication of what our film is about and a bit about our hero but the plot is not yet given away.




How my research has influenced my idea:
my research has had a great impact on my own story line, many the analysis of kick ass has helped as it also features a geeky none hero, to start with. Hancock made us explore the ideas that you can challenge stereotypical images, as Hancock is firstly seen as a criminal before a hero. Finally, films like Cat woman helped us a lot to understand how super-heroins are generally seen.


How i am going to engage our target audience:
Our target audience, widely is males and females age 16 - 35 as this is the majority of people that visit and watch these type of movies. However, we would like to channel teens, both girl and boy. As our genre is action/ fantasy and chick-flick, I believe the girls will enjoy our film due to the chick flick element but also through the way the character is a girl, making it easier to relate but also as she will display femininity. The boys will equally be encouraged to watch it due to the gender of the superhero but also from the action element.



Reanna Harrison's Media Blog: Questionairre

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Presentation (checklist)

After our presentation we did pier assessment : 

Setting, Costume & Prop ideas

PROPS:


What we will need:

1. a sewing machine                                  
2. scissors
3. sequences
4. mask
5. glasses
6. string
7. jeans
8. boots
9. calender
10. felt tip pens
11. paper
12. comic book
13. magazines
14. fairy lights
15. pictures on the wall

lOCATIONS:

1.  idea for setting and location: (evening) starts with a behind long shot of our main protagonist walking down a street, as she passes by different objects in the street, eg: lamppost, she changes from geek to superhero. through the use of changing costume but also through the way she walks and acts.
2.  idea for setting and location: Starts by a girl sitting on her sofa at home. A medium shot, as though the camera is the TV. She is watching the news, when she notices a crime is happening not that far away from her, the camera shows a variety of shots, one showing her picking up her costume, then putting her mask on, and then a shot of the window with the curtains blowing, indicating that is where she has gone to help.
3.  and chosen idea for setting and location: Starts with our ident that emerges into a real image of a lamppost at night. The camera then zooms out until it looks as though the someone is looking out a window. The light from the streetlamp then turns into the light from fairy lights in out protagonists room. The rest of the opening trails on to show a variety of different shots establishing how she is making her costume, for example a shot of her pinning her blazer and cutting out her logo. it ends with the camera overlooking some drawing of the protagonists costume, which then turns into a cover of a comic book displaying the title ‘Lacie or Alice’

Costume:

1. idea for costume :

Geek ‘ alice’: Typical outfit for a geek, with a brown coloured polo neck top, with a yellow blazer, tight blue skinny jeans and clumpy shoes, and geek glass, long straight boring hair.

Super-heroin ‘Lacie’: Typical outfit for a superhero, tight lycra type closing, all pink and low cut, long black boots and long curly hair. a pink glittery mask and a logo across her chest.

2. and chosen idea for costume:

Geek ‘Alice’: Again -Typical outfit for a geek, with a brown coloured polo neck top, with a yellow blazer, tight blue skinny jeans and clumpy shoes, and geek glass, long straight boring hair.

Super-Heroin ‘Lacie’: However, will have still a face mask and a logo but will custermise the geek outfit, so the long skinny jeans will become little jean hot-pants, the polo neck will become a V-neck and the blazer will be half the size, sleaves rolled up and turned pink. long socks underneath the pink boots and a big head band holding back her big curly hair.


inspiration to show the transformation: (princess diaries)

Geek?

popular?

Part Of Research And Planning :

What is a Linear Narrative:

A clue is in the word linear as it means a straight, implying that the  narrative is going to be straight forward and follows a pattern. One that unfolds as the story happens.

Example of a linear narrative :

Part Of Research And Planning :

What is Hyper-Link Cinema:

·        Jumps from story to story, almost randomly.

·        Examples:

This is because there are numerous story lines within this one film, jumping between them to eventually building up too one complete film 

This diagram explains how the characters all link together. 

Part Of Research And Planning :

What is a Linear Narrative:

It is a narrative that jumps in time or situations, does not follow a straight pattern.

       

Part Of Research And Planning

Narrative Structure:

How a story is constructed.

Act 1: The set up. This is when you introduce the main characters and their situation. For example where they came from and why they are? The part for Initial characterisation.

End of Act 1: introduce a problem, or problems

Act 2: The conflict. Main part of the film. as the situation and character develops, and how they change through the duration of the film.

Act 3: The resolution. When the character realises what they have to do to solve the problem.

example :

Part Of Research And Planning

IDENT

What is an Ident?

An indent is an identification symbol for different productions to market themselves, but also so the audience know the genre of the films.

For example the Walt Disney castle is age appropriate for children:

example:

   

Another example of an ident:

Ideas for indents:

1. Our first idea for our indent came from how superheroes create good, a superhero film normally is set in a dark place, but by the end of the film everything turns out for the better. So our indent starts with an image of a brick wall, bench and flickering street lamp in a French street, symbolising the dark side of the street, but then vibrant balloons float across the image, trailing of up into the sky, reach the top of the Eiffel tower and the balloons pop writing out the words... 'Parisons Productions'.

2. Our second idea is very similar to the first minus some elements. It is still a street with a bench and lamppost, revealing the same message for when the balloons float across the screen but then a single red balloon wonders up to the lamppost and as it goes by the light the lamppost turns on. Meanwhile in graffiti writing 'bring light productions' is written on the wall behind.

3.Our third idea was a little different but more simple, as it was purely to have words on fire, spelling 'flaming productions' and then a fire extinguisher or bucket of water to blow out the fire.

Chosen ident idea ~

·         Our 'first idea' was initially the one we decided to carry out, as we painted a brick wall, with a bench and a lamppost with all the balloons. However, we could not draw the Eiffel tower as it was proving to difficult so we decided to go with 'idea 2'.

We captured the brick wall image of the internet along with the bench and adjusted the saturation to make it look dull and dim, to create a rough dark street picture.

as we wanted to make it have a cartoon feel, we decided to draw the lamppost and paint it, one with the light on and one with the light off. Then we scanned in the lampposts into the computer, however, the lamppost where to different so we used the same lamppost and coloured in the light in Photoshop to make it look like it was being turned on.

a similar thing happened with the balloons, so we used the same one and copied and coloured them in. With the help of using Photoshop we managed to create the right images and put then all together using a different programme to make the images move.

Originally we had the idea of making a glow in the background when the light turns on to make it look most realistic, but ran out of time. Due to the drawings have a cartoon surrealist look, we intend to add a howling wind soundtrack and a 'ding' for when the light turned on to create realism but again sadly ran out of time.

Our inspiration was from the famous graffiti artwork

'BANKSY GIRL WITH RED HEART BALLOON'

Not only with the representation of the red balloon but through the graffiti, street image too.

Part Of Research And Planning :

What is a genre?

In latin genre means 'kind' or 'sort', it is the term for any category based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions, however, they have changed over time as new genres are produced and the use of old ones are discontinued. Often, works can fit into multiple genres, by way of borrowing and altering these conventions.

The different genres and sub genres, that we looked at to focus our film opening on:

1. 1. Chick Flick 

1. 1. The slang term 'chick flicks' majority deal with love and romance, they are designed to appeal to a female target audience as typically they rely on heavy emotions or contain themes that are relationship-based

1. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • orom coms are generally light-hearted, true love stories with humorous plot-lines, centered around romantic settings, and the characters manage to get by the obstacleslifestyles 

chosen: A definition of a stereotypical superhero film: 

Most superhero films are adopted from comic books, a conventional superhero film usually features an ordinary person, someone who blends in. When the characters are themselves they could vary from a journalist like in Spiderman or a little boy like in daredevil, the majority of films make their main protagonist determined to protect the public or save the world, continuously changing between their normal from to that of superhero power. The super human strength, x-ray vision or abnormal capabilities spiral from a supernatural event that changes their life forever, this is evident when either they get bitten by an animal or fall into a magical well.

The basic story-line of the superhero films: 

Hancock: Peter Berg's 2008 film is a mix of American action-comedy and a superhero film. It tells the story of a vigilante superhero, John Hancock (Will Smith) from Los Angeles, he carries out a number of  reckless actions which end up costing the city millions of dollars. However, one person he saves, Ray Embrey (Bateman), makes it his mission to change Hancock's public impression for the better.                                                                 

I decided to analyse the first two minutes of Hancock in order for us to build up an idea of how different superhero films use different conventions and stereotypes to make up a hero film. Starts with a muffled voice (like someone is speak through a radio) maybe a police officer explaining what is happening to either a fellow college or on the news, sub-consously explaining to the audience, non diegetic music is playing underneath the voice which is accompanied with diegetic sound of cars and gun shots, to create and complement the idea of a car chase. It follows on to establish the situation, as then you see the police cars, helicopters and the intense car chase, a mix of quick editing through long and close up shots of the chase, creating tension. However, the music has turned to a complete contradiction on the scene, with the sun is shining, this questions a stereotypical car chase, as it doesn’t obviously make the audience worry about the outcome so much.  Suddenly the music and police sirens stop as it jumps to a close up shot of a foot, the camera slow tilts along his leg  to reach his face, while  the non diegetic noise of snoring plays in the back ground, A complete juxtaposition of scenes in the first two minutes. But then the worlds are quickly brought together through how the music plays again in this frame. The audience are then shown a close up of an alcoholic bottle, giving the impression that his vagrant mannerism. It then jumps back to the scene of the car chase, this time including more close up shots of the criminals, possible to show that they are running out of time and there is more of a chance of getting caught. Flickering between the two scenes, you, the audience, see Hancock laid out on a bench, a young boy then tries to wake him up. This tells you a lot about Hancock as the little boy seems to know his name and shows him the car chase that is being shown on the TV of a shop. This indicates to the audience that firstly, he has some issues as he is laying asleep on a public bench with alcohol close by, well known and for some reason people know he could help.  In the space of a couple of seconds he has been called an ‘asshole’ twice implying that although he is well known he is not necessary liked. He has lost all dignity as a women passing by, he shows no gentlemen tendencies towards her. There are numerous close ups of Hancock, which could imply that something is going to become very apparent about him, almost waiting for some clues. Suddenly the audience are shocked when a cloud of dust marks his power, then the long high angle shot of him jumping and flying into the sky . There is then a quick shot of the skylines, which places the film in large city. The non dietetic music then turns to a ‘hip-hop’ song and the camera follows him flying, weaving through the buildings. By this time the audience have establish a myriad of features about his character, his attitude, power and strength, and the way he does not follow a typical superhero convention maybe as he is not yet a superhero.

-Unbreakable: This film is a study of parts of a comic book, the film explores the contrast between the real world and the mythology of superheroes, M. Night Shyamalan, 2000 film has a myriad of genres including psychological thriller, superhero and drama. The film’s stars Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, telling the story of how a security guard slowly reveals that he is in fact a superhero.

Kick ass: Matthew Vaughn's 2010 film is a superhero and black comedy film, which again is based on a comic book series. The storyline is basically about an ordinary teenager, Dave Lizewski, who sets out to become a real-life superhero called Kick-Ass". However, he gets caught up in something much bigger.

Kick ass starts in a similar way to Hancock, as firstly before any characters or settings are produced, a motivational and inspirational voice appears, almost like a speech is being read through a microphone. The camera starts with a shot of the clouds and moves through the clouds as if the camera is the audience, while the productions are introduced. Non diegetic honourable music creeps up accompanied by the echoing voice. Once the voice has stopped the camera tilts down to an establishing long shot of a city of skylines again similar to Hancock. Soothing high pitch music appears and a normal boy voice starts to speak and takes over. As the camera tilts downwards the camera becomes the audience, they are met with a long shot frame of behind a typical superhero. He is stood facing the skylines, with his cape blowing in the wind. The dialog indicates that the superhero is the narrator speaking. The camera zooms closer but as doing so goes over his head and reaches an image of what the superhero sees, the extreme long shot of the ground. The camera then flicks from a low angle shot to a high angle of the people looking up the building where the superhero is stood. The audience are then shown a close up of his face, in a typical superhero helmet, as the narrator questions the audience about them.  Then the audience know that he is not actually a superhero ‘as some point in our lives we all wanted to be a superhero’ as he leans forward to jump of the building. When he leaves the building the non diegetic music intensifies and you get a low angle shot of the ground fast approaching, powerful upbeat music plays as the watchers and passersby clap and cheer, suddenly he music is cut short when the sound of the superhero crashes into a yellow cab. Then the young man’s voice appears again, and is happy to tell the audience that ‘that isn’t me by the way’. The audience from the information already given know that this is not going to be another typical superhero film. The camera zooms into the car and lands on the number plate that spells ‘kick ass’ which indicates the film has started.