Vice's Rule Britannia - Ident Brief

Vice UK's Rule Britannia series features some unflinching and enlightening insights into aspects of life in modern day Britain. Documentaries such as The Debt Collector, Fraud, and Bare Knuckle Boxing feature characters who are at the same time endearing, repulsion, but overall fascinating. Viewing these was not only useful for developing my understanding and knowledge of Factual pieces, but also in getting an idea for an ident to go along with this series. D&AD have issued a brief asking practitioners to submit a 10 to 15 second ident that captures the spirit of the Rule Britannia series. The current ident, seen above, depicts a tattered and torn Union Jack blowing in the wind as a melancholy theme plays in the background. The makers of this ident said they wanted to convey a feeling of "lost innocence" through the use of 70s style stop motion animation and I believe they have certainly achieved what they set on too. The sense of lost innocence and melancholy is fitting to the image that the documentaries portray of modern day Britain, which is a lawless, violent land with complex, dark characters, and contrasting with the traditional image of Britain of cups of tea, double Decker bus, royal family etc. Therefore I think that my ident should go along similar lines of doing a subversive version of traditional British imagery.

 I have taken some test shots based on the initial idea that I came up with when presented with the brief. This was to have the Vice logo on the outside of a bag of chips, which then opens up to find the title 'Rule Britannia' amongst the chips. Whilst I still believe this is the start of a good idea I need to develop it slightly and decide on what format I am going to use to capture it. My initial feeling was to do a kind of snap shot montage showing the chip bag opening up and then put some fitting music on top of it, but I will need to learn
how to do this first. I will also need some proper lighting and camera equipment to make this look good as opposed to what I have just knocked up in 5 minutes here. My next step will be to view some of the entries which have already been submitted to get an idea the kind of standard I am working towards and develop my idea further.

British Horror - From Hammer to Kill List

Great Britain's contribution to the world of Horror cinema can never be understated. Some of the biggest icons of the genre, Dracula and Frankenstein spring to mind immediately, originated on our shores in their original literary format. Though it wasn't until the late 1950's that Britain really made it's mark on Horror in Cinema with the release of The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula. Under the direction of Terence Fisher, these full colour reboots of the legendary horror characters put Hammer on the map as the kings of British Horror, and other studios such as Amicus and Tigon followed suit. Peter Cushing and Christoper Lee become the new leading icons of the Horror genre, following in the footsteps of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. These films were darker and bloodier than the Horror that gone before and it's influence was felt worldwide. Italy began producing it's own brand of Gothic horror films, starting in 1960 with Mario Bava's Black Sunday, an original take on the vampire story which made it's star Barbara Steele an icon of the genre. Over in America, B - Movie extraordinaire also began his cycle of Edgar Allen Poe adaptations in 1960, starting with House of Usher. Hereby we can see that in the late 50's and early 60's, Hammer were responsible for breathing new life into a stagnating genre, and establishing British Horror as a style of its own which could not be duplicated by other countries.

By the 1970's, the Gothic Horror of Hammer had started to become a little old hat. Films such as Dracula A..D. 1972 and The Legend of The Seven Golden Vampires, attempted to modernise the genre, but with little success.  Christopher Lee was fed up of being typecast in his typical Hammer Horror parts, and wanted to take on more interesting roles. Around this time, a new sub genre of Horror had come into vogue, known 'Folk Horror' or 'Rural Horror'. Films such as Blood on Satan's Claw and Witchfinder General, took place away from the castles of Frankenstein and Dracula and took Horror into the countryside, where the fear of pagan religion, imagined or otherwise, was the dominant theme. Lee met with screenwriter Anthony Shaffer and director Robin Hardy, and together they decided it would be fun to do a film based around 'old religion' as a contrast to the horror depicted in the Hammer films. The resulting film, 1973's The Wicker Man, is the best known example of British Rural Horror. Though it's legacy has been overshadowed in popular conscious somewhat by the horrible Nicolas Cage remake, the original still packs a punch thanks to incredibly creepy atmosphere, good performances, and an ending that leaves a lump in your throat. The magazine Cinefantastique desribed it as "The Citizen Kane of Horror Movies", and Christopher Lee himself, who has starred in over 200 films, considers it his best one.

Fast forward to the modern day and the influence British Horror is still felt in contemporary film-making. Hammer themselves have made something of a comeback with films such as The Woman In Black and The Quiet Ones. However, one film in the last few years which really owes to the legacy of Rural and Folk Horror is Ben Wheatley's 2011 film Kill List. In this film, a returning British soldier and his friend take a job as contract killers, and soon become sucked into an underworld which involved a mysterious cult. The film reminded me of a cross between The Wicker Man and the work of director Shane Meadows, whose films paint bleak and realistic images of modern day working class England. Now that I am watching a lot more films from different periods and genres as part of my course, I find I am now able to detect references and influences in films which I couldn't before. At one point in Kill List the protagonist's family cat is killed off screen and then hung outside there front door as a warning from the antagonists. A very similar thing happens in Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, in which the couples cat is hung in their closest. I also detected some Kubrickian touches in Kill List, and was not surprised when Ben Wheatley named him as an influence on the film. The film is broken into chapters named after targets on the Kill List, such as 'The Librarian', which is similar to how some of Kubrick's films are broken up. Also, the idea of the main protagonist being drawn into a secret cult whose motives and origins are never really explained reminded me of Eyes Wide Shut. Kill List features an ending which could disturb even the most seasoned Horror veteran, and almost makes The Wicker Man's ending seem tame by comparison Ultimately, Kill List shows that the influence and legacy of British Horror continues in fine form, and made me excited to check out some of Ben Wheatley's other films and other films within the British Horror genre.

Reflections On First Semester and Targets For Improvement

Christmas has been and gone and we are now into the second semester of the course. There are things which I have done so far which I am proud of and I hope to keep going in the new year, but, particularly in light of the Fan Man, there are a lot of things which I have to improve on and which I am going to set myself targets to get better at.

Now that my camera test and Task 2 and 3 deadline for Practice Enrichment is looming one thing that has become obvious is that I haven't taken enough time to practice with the equipment. During the footage of Fan Man I concentrated on my character and considering the decisions that I would make in the edit. I think I was somewhat scared of using the camera due to my inexperience with it. Now that I actually own a 600D and have taken to practice my confidence is already growing. I have been referring to notes made during class and have found them to be really helpful. I now have an understanding of the proper steps you should take when you first turn it, from setting the custom white balance using a sheet of paper, to turning on manual focus, and setting the sound levels. I still have a way to go with using the camera so I am going to aim to get as much practice in as I can. I am going to set aside and hour each day in which to practice with the equipment, and am going to refer to the list of books in the module guide and find something helpful. I am confident that both this and the practice of actually doing the Tasks 2 and 3 will allow me to vastly improve my vocational skills.

I also need to set aside time to get in the edit suite and work on my tasks for Digital Skills. I received good feedback for both of my tasks but we highlighted things which that I can improve on. My music video has a strong start but the ending goes downhill. I use quite long clips which makes it look like I am just using over peoples edits. The reason for this is that when I got close to the ending I was running out of time and just trying to shove in as many clips as I could. I need to go back and take my time and make the ending as good as the beginning.  In terms of my second task which is a short scene between two people, it is pretty much done apart from a few changes to make just to make it overall flow better. A couple of the shots run too long, and I need to add some cutaways just to make the scene look more intresting. This shouldn't be too hard of a job and I am confident I will be able to keep up to date with my editing tasks and keep on devoloping my Digital Skills.

In terms of our new Intro to Factual Unit I need to think about the lessons learned in Fiction and began to consider what could be an interesting subject to make a documentary on. Obviously our finished Into To Fiction piece wasn't as good as we had hoped, and to prevent something like this from happening again I definitely need to contribute more to whatever group I am placed in and speak out more when I recognise that something is wrong or isn't working. I am going to start watching more factual programmes and films and take a look at the content on the BBC Three Fresh website in order to gather inspiration that will start me thinking about what I might like to pitch.

Contextual Studies is the part of the course I have the most confidence in, and I think I am a reversal of many of the other people on the course in that written work is my strong point and vocational stuff is what I struggle with. I enjoy writing essays and I have always been extremely pleased with the marks and feedback I have received from them. What I now need to do is look into what it is I want to write about for my big essay that Contextual Studies has been leading up to.