Home Grown Cinema: Shifty

Synopsis: Shifty is a fast pace film of the urban genre, about two friends who grew up on the outskirts of London. Years later shiftys life had changed dramatically now a crack cocaine dealer trying to survive, out smart rival dealers and eventually change. Chris, Shiftys childhood friend returns home years later, finally facing the mess he left behind. It's the most action packed 24hours of their lives.

The effects of sound on the moving image, to create 'meaning' through sound design

"Sound has a great power but is a conditional power. I places the image in a physical and emotional context, helping us to decide how to take image and how it integrates  itself into everything else".- Walter murch

Diegetic- narative, sound from within the scene. Non- diegetic- music to tell emotion, sound outside the scene.

Meeting Jeremy Thomas

Fortunately due to my wonderful teachers , I was given the amazing opportunity to meet, the very famous, proud to mention British film producer Jeremy Thomas! Some of the films he as produces are as follows: The Last Emperor (1987), Sexy Beast (2000), Rabbit Proof Fence (2002) and The dreamers (2003).
 Son of Gerald Thomas, so he grew up in the film industry which soon became his passion. Given a start in life, he was a rebel at school and dedicated all of his time towards film and making them. He was a very determined young boy who climbed his way to the top. He had won an Oscar for The Last Emperor, in total the film wining nine! It is a remarkable achievement one which everyone passionate about film making can only dream of!
 Listening to him speak was intriguing, simultaneously inspiring, you could almost feel his passion for films. He seemed very understanding towards being young and interested in film, he was down to earth, naturally poetic and as he said through his years of experience he was full of helpful quotes, he compared life to a journey in an air craft -" The plane takes off, you travel through the clouds where much doesn't seem clear, then finally you get through the clouds, and everything becomes clear again".Another quote he sheared with us speaking of life was as follows- "You drop a leaf into a river, and it (you) drift down the river meeting obstructions (and people) along the way".

The production chain

1. The pitch, finding someone to give money for the film.
2. Development, film scripts putting ideas together
3. Principal photography, filming, first day on set
4. Post-production, editing colouring etc
5. Sales agent, finds distributers
6. Distribution, the people who find exibeters- exaple: universal.
7. Exhibition, cinemas

Examining how light can be used to express meaning.

 " Light is everting. It expressses ideology, emotion, colour, depth, style. I can efface, narrate, describe. With lighting, the ugliest face, the most idiotic expression can radiate with beauty or intelligence." - Frederico Fellini, Director.

Today we were taight in depth about, reading lights. What we can tell from a scence by the use of lights. Light is used for the representation of ideology etc. Certain lighting aluminates the meaning of the scene and sets a particular tone, to help the audience understand the narrative of the film.

We also breifly touched upon a Feminist film theorist, Laura Mulvey.