The Oscars: 'Is Hollywood racist?'

The Oscars had been ashamed by some Hollywood figures complaining about the shortage of ethnic diversity among this year's contestants, as all 20 nominees in the best acting or supporting acting categories are white. The Host Chris Rock witnessed the problem head on as he launched the ceremony, and it was a theme that came up multiple times throughout the evening. Rock admitted  he had "counted at least 15 black people" in the montage that opened the ceremony, before welcoming people to the "white People's Choice awards". "You realise if they nominated hosts, I wouldn't even get this job," he quipped. "Y'all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now."
Rock added: "Everyone wants to know is Hollywood racist? You have to go at it the right way. Is it burning-cross racist? Fetch-me-some-lemonade racist? No.
"It's a different kind of racist. Is Hollywood racist? You're damn right it's racist but it's sorority racist. It's like: We like you Rhonda, but you're not a Kappa.''

The Danish Girl at the Oscars

Alicia Vikander won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in Tom Hooper’s transgender drama The Danish Girl.
The 27-year-old beat Kate Winslet for the award. The Steve Jobs actress was seen as the frontrunner after winning both the Bafta and Golden Globe for her performance. Vikander had also won the Screen Actors Guild award for her role.
The Danish Girl which was directed by Oscar-winner Tom Hooper, and revolves on the first ever recipient of gender reassignment surgery and the effect it has on his marriage. Alicia Vikander stars alongside Eddie Redmayne, whom is also nominated for his outstanding performance.

It was one of many films that consisted of swedish born Vikander. She also appeared in the drama Burnt, and comedy The Man From UNCLE, sci-fi thriller Ex Machina, fantasy adventure Seventh Son, crime thriller Son of a Gun and wartime romance Testament of Youth.

Leonardo DiCaprio finally wins an Oscar

Leonardo DiCaprio  finally won his first Oscar for the epic The Revenant, after having six nominations. DiCaprio was named best actor at the 88th Academy Awards, whilst Brie Larson won  best actress for Room. The presenter Julianne Moore who won Best Actress at last year's Oscar's, waited a while before announcing Leonardo's name, to create anticipation for when presenting him with the award. To this date, DiCaprio has won over 40 awards and has been nominated six times for an Oscar. Excitingly this is his first win.

Preliminary Task

Scheduling Actors for our thriller

Our actors Lolly Isaacs and Raphi Patterson were really good with filming times, they were not complicated when we gave them the times and were on time. Although we moved Raphi to the morning instead of the afternoon, as Lolly didn't have to leave at 2 anymore.

Our thriller: Getting Mise en scene and Props

Mise en Scene and props were not that difficult to gather for our film. Most of the props we needed were only for the scenes we shot inside. Lighting was definitely important and making sure we had our blue sheet of assotate so the lights would fit the mood for our interior shots. We needed a cigarette and a ash tray, but for the ash tray we used a circular glass bowl as none of us smoked or had one at home. Our male character played a troubled role, having issues with alcohol, so we needed beer bottles ect.... to set the scene.

Pulp Fiction: Film Review

Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American black crime comedy film which is directed and written by Quentin Tarantino. It is Trantino's second feature film which is known for its eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline and a host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references.

It has been nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Quentin Tarantino and Avary won the Best Original Screenplay.

The film is really electric and full of bright colours and captures the culture of America during the 1990s. The films development, marketing and distribution had a huge effect on the field of Independent Cinema

The movie was produced by Lawrence Bender and starred John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson and Uma Thurman. It had a budget of $8-8.5 million and made at Box Office $213.9 million.

I really enjoyed watching Pulp Fiction, there was something about it, making it feel completely different when I watch it. There was a good selection of actors for the film and they help make it complete. Overall I found it really funny and capturing and would definitely recommend.

Interior Shooting: Photographing along the way

Here are a few photographs of us filming inside. We had to experiment a lot with the lighting, as we have never used it before, and we used a piece of associate paper with blue printed over the top to give a more blue effect when were filming which worked really well. 

Preliminary Task

Our preliminary task worked really well. We tried to make it simple and an easy going conversation. Me and Jade were filming and Wini and Joe from another group helped act in our task. It was exciting to use the camera for the first time as we have never used it before, and to learn how to use it before we started filming. The quality was fantastic and it was really fun to use, not too complicated. Overall it worked well and was a huge help as an introduction of learning how to use the camera.

SHOT LISTS

Shooting: First day

The day went really well but it was absolutely freezing, which was difficult for Lolly because she was only in tights and a little dress. So, we had to make sure we kept giving her her jacket when she wasn't filming. We were a little worried when we got to the station, just incase they made a fuss about us filming there but there was no problem and they actually offered to help. We started filming about 11 and finished around 7, we went from the station to the garage and to Totteridge where we went back to Jades house to film the interior shots. 

Shooting: Photographs

Here are some of the 'candid' shots from our day of shooting. 

Skins

Skins is a teen British Drama that is based on a group of teenagers in sixth from that live in Bristol and South West England. The story lines are quite typical for people in this age group and are quite controversial, for example the cover issues like mental illness (eating disorders) unstable families, substance abuse and adolescent sexuality. An individual episode focuses on one particular character and what the upside and downside is to their lives.

Skins was created by a father and son, Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain for Company Pictures.
There are 7 series and 61 episodes throughout the whole show. And stares Kaya Scodelario, Nicholas Hoult and Hannah Murray....

I've recently been watching Skins on Netflix. I have watched mostly everything on there but never seen Skins, which is quite unusual for someone my age. So i started from Season 1 and finished all the seasons within two days. I was addicted. I really liked it although i felt as if it got much better from Season 3 when we get to see the world from Effy's generation. I think Effy makes the show, her mysterious and destructible character always leaves whoever watching expecting something big to happen as she gets herself in the worst trouble. I like how each episode concentrates on one particular character, this creates a fresh start to each new episode and is much more exciting.

Thriller production call sheet

Preliminary Task Script

Here is the script for our provisional task, we wanted to keep it as simple as possible.


Jade: Hey


Wini: Hey


Jade: How are you?


Wini: Good thanks, what about you?


Jade:Yeah! Its my birthday tomorrow, would you want to come to my party?


Wini: Yeah cool, thanks! Where is it?


Jade: At my house! Ill send you the address.


Wini: Thanks, see you tomorrow!