Canon DSLR

After working with DSLR cameras at college, I decided I would buy one myself to improve the quality of my films. I purchased a canon 650D with a 18-55mm lens and a fixed 50mm lens.


I knew the basics from college but had never been brave enough to fully explore the cameras features for fear of breaking it! but now I had my own, I had the opportunity to do so!


There are hundreds of different settings and I could ramble on for ages! Instead I will mention a few of my favourites.


Probably the most helpful id the moveable display screen. It flips away from the camera and rotates making particularly low and high angle shots much easier to get right. There is also the option to switch between the display screen and the viewfinder when taking photographs.

Aside from the physical features, there are also several in-camera features to enhance the footage. I recently filmed a music video in monochrome, without having to add effects during editing. My favourite photos are those that are in black and white so instantly adding the effect gives me the finished product straight off!


The ability to alter ISO and aperture can help to create a variety of moods within shots - bright and happy, dark and tense before editing has even begun.


I recently purchased a shotgun mic to accompany my camera. So far its working great! It attaches easily to the camera and provides clear sound much louder than that recorded by the cameras internal microphone.


This is my favourite piece of equipment and to  anyone looking to get into photography or film I would definitely recommend this product. For me the additional recording switch to the on/off button makes putting the camera into film mode a lot quicker which is why I chose the 650D as opposed to the 600D. I hope to invest in more lenses in the near future, the first on my list being the micro lens for extreme close up photography!

Go Pro

I purcahsed a Go Pro a couple of years ago and its one of my favourite pieces of equipment. So far I have used it on a bodyboard in the sea and on a bike helmet, filming a bike ride around bike tracks but I can't wait to use it for more!  I have the HD Hero 2, so since then more advanced models have been released!

I have been able to use the HD Hero 3, which is slightly smaller than the HD Hero 2 and also has the feature of remote control use. Of the two, I prefer the Hero 3, but the Hero 2 is just as good in quality terms (1080p) .

I bought the motorsports edition, which comes with 3 or 4 changable mounts, and suction cup mount for use on car windows etc. My uncle actually built me a camera boom which works by attatching the suction cup mount and camera to a ping pong paddle shaped panel at one end! This helps with pans and high angle shots. I would also like to get the chest harness mount for use when cycling. These cameras do not have a display screen, but they shoot with a fish eye effect, meaning they will pick everything up when pointed in the right direction. I don't find having no display screen an issue, but there is a detachable display screen that you can buy separately if it is something that you need.

There is also a case designed for filming in 3D. The case consists of holding two go pro cameras, one upside down the other the right way up. I think this is a really cool idea and one day in the future would love to give this a try!

I am signed up to the Go Pro website, so am often emailed with amazing videos taken from other people around the world. My favourite videos  are  of people skydiving in squirrel suits and surfers from within the wave, the quality these cameras produce is just amazing! They work really well both above and below water! If possible, I would definitely recommend buying one or even two of these cameras!. They are small enough to take anywhere and everywhere and I always have mine on hand. They are constantly developing new models and equipment which is definitely worth looking into!

The latest release is the HD Hero 4 Session which is half the size of previous models. It comes with the same range of mounts but only has one button, unlike other models, making action shooting much easier. At the moment, I wouldn't have any use for this particular model, however I hope to become more involved with water sports in the future, and so may consider investing in one of these soon!

Highest Grossing Films of All Time

Obviously, the main aim of making a film is to make money, aand I wondered, is there a link between the top ten highest grossing films of all time?

Top Ten Highest Grossing Films Of all Time: (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/)

Rank	Title	Studio	Worldwide	Domestic / %		Overseas / %		Year^
1	Avatar	Fox	$2,788.0	$760.5	27.3%	$2,027.5	72.7%	2009^
2	Titanic	Par.	$2,186.8	$658.7	30.1%	$1,528.1	69.9%	1997^
3	Marvel's The Avengers	BV	$1,518.6	$623.4	41.0%	$895.2	59.0%	2012
4	Furious 7	Uni.	$1,511.6	$351.0	23.2%	$1,160.6	76.8%	2015
5	Jurassic World	Uni.	$1,416.4	$572.5	40.4%	$843.9	59.6%	2015
6	Avengers: Age of Ultron	BV	$1,384.1	$454.8	32.9%	$929.3	67.1%	2015
7	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	WB	$1,341.5	$381.0	28.4%	$960.5	71.6%	2011
8	Frozen	BV	$1,274.2	$400.7	31.4%	$873.5	68.6%	2013
9	Iron Man 3	BV	$1,215.4	$409.0	33.7%	$806.4	66.3%	2013
10	Transformers: Dark of the Moon	P/DW	$1,123.8	$352.4	31.4%	$771.4	68.6%	2011

Now, the first thing I know I look for in a film is the genre. Everyone has a preference so does this have an effect on the gross of the film?
In the number one spot is 'Avatar' (2009, Cameron), this is classified as a Sci-Fi adventure film. There seems to be a trend for action/adventure films in the top ten;  'Marvel's The Avengers' (2012, Whedon), 'Furious 7' (2015, Wan), 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' (2015, Whedon), 'Iron Man 3' (2013, Black) and 'Transformers: Dark Of The Moon' (2011, Bay). This seems to be the preferable genre, maybe this is because it offers an escape from the real world. They represent locations and situations that will not happn in our own lives, we become immersed in another place, perhaps making these films more popular.

Stars are also a huge part of films. Often, the films starring the most famous actors are more popular than those who cast relatively unknown actors. 'Titanic' (1997, Cameron) stars Leonrado DiCaprio, who previous to this film was famous for playing Romeo in 'Romeo and Juliet' (1996, Luhrmann) and Kate Winslet whi had starred in both Television and Films previous to 'Titanic'. This may have been a large factor in driving this film to the highest grossing film of all time before 'Avatar'. Other films may have also benefitted from star power: 'Furious 7' -Vin Diesel and 'Jurassic World' (2015, Trevorrow)- Chris Pratt.

It is not just the cast that can draw an audience to a film,  directors could also be considered the driving star power behind the film. 'Avatar' and 'Titanic' were both directed by James Cameron. Before 'Titanic', Cameron was known for directing several films such as 'Aliens'(1986) the sequel to Ridley Scott's 'Alien' (1979) . He was well known, and by the time of 'Avatar' was already a huge success. Fans of Cameron are likely to want to watch his films, this may drraw in a larger audience, along with fans of the cast e.g. Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana. Joss Whedon, Director of the Avengers films, was not only a writer (with credits including Toy Story) but was also a director of TV ( 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' (1996-2003), 'Firefly' (2002)). He was already well known in the film industry, so was likely to have already had a large following, making his films more popular than others.

Saying this however, 'Avengers' is part of the Marvel franchise, meaning it may have attained the same amount of popularity regardless of the director. The Marvel films are hugely popular worldwide with all ages, starring big names such as Chris Hemsworth, Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett Johansson. The same can be said fo 'Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2' (2011, Yates). This is the final installement to the Harry Potter franchise, which was already a global phenomenon in both books and film. It is now the 7th highest grossing film of all time, and in my opinion this is due to the gradually building of success of the other Harry Potter films.

There is one film however that seems to subvert all the trends noted above. This is 'Frozen' (2013, Buck and Lee). This is another of Disney's more modern princess animations, personally I preferred 'Tangled' (2010, Greno and Howard) but 'Frozen' seems to have taken the world by storm, with 'Frozen 2' in the line up for production. Maybe it was due to its slightly different storyline, set in the icey cold rather than the usual disney forests, or the humourous characters of Olaf, Christoph and Sven but this film surprised everyone with its huge success. It was not just the film, but the soundtrack that was massively successful. After it was released it was difficult to to avoid hearing 'Let it Go' on an almost daily basis!



So, I think genre and stars are the main drivers behind a films success, however sometimes films such as 'Frozen' defy the rules and result in a hugely unpredictable success!

Information Sources

I write a lot of stuff on personal opinion after watching a film, however a lot of the ideas behind the blog posts come from places such as Empire Magazine.

I have been subscribed to Empire magazine for over a year and a half and have built up quite the collection! The articles I most look forward to are the 'On Location' and the 'How much is a pint of milk?', but they are always full of interesting topics, for example the latest issue named Indiana Jones the top movie charater of all time, with a whole section dedicated to the top 100 voted characters of all time. I love recieving and opening the magazine in the post, waiting to see what the next cover will look like! It keeps me up to date with the upcoming films and allows me to develop my

knowledge of the film industry.
- http://www.empireonline.com/

Figures regarding years and directors come from one of my most visitied websites IMDb! You can type in any film, even those in production and can find out the year of release and the director. Further to this you get a short or long summary of the film, plus a full list of all cast and crew. This is particularly helpful when writing about the films I have seen!
- http://www.imdb.com/

Finally, I also use Box Office Mojo for figures regarding the amount films have grossed, it ison this website that the highest grossing films of all times exists! and is good to read through even when I'm not trying to find figures for my blog! There is also the option to find out what the highest grossing film over the weekend was, or the highest grossing film domestically making this another of my favourite websites!.
- http://www.boxofficemojo.com/

Location, Location, Location!

One of the biggest appeals of filmmaking for me is the finding and shooting on locations, travelling the world and exploring new cultures. I love to travel, I have been to lots of places already but theres so many more places I want to see!

So far I have been fortunate enough to visit the locations of a variety of films. Ok, it's an animation but I have visited Sydney a couple of times, the location of Disney Pixar's 'Nemo' (2003, Andrew Stanton, LeeUnkrich)! The opera house, the harbour bridge! It's all there! Sydney is an amazing city, one I could never be bored with and so I hope to be back soon!

I have also been to San Francisco, location for several films including Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' (1956) which was one of the case study films for my exams, and 'Dawn of The Planet Of The Apes' (2014, Matt Reeves) which I actually watched during a flight to Australia! Winding roads, picture postcard houses and the iconic Golden Gate Bridge makes San Francisco a dream location for any genre of film.

A little closer to home, last Easter my family and I did a walk around the village of Turville, the location for 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' (1968, Ken Hughes). This is another one of my favourite classic films! I know all the words and have even seen the stage show! The windmill in the film is in fact the windmill in Turville and once belonged to ... How exciting !

'The Look Out', Bracknell, although not as exciting as Sydney! makes an appearance in the  Harry Potter films , I remember my English teacher telling us she'd accidentally walked onto the set whilst walking her dogs! Only to be removed by the security guard!

Although I have visited a few locations there are hundreds more that I want to see!

Top of my list is Matamata, New Zealand. Location of 'The Hobbit' and 'Lord Of The Rings', there are set tours of the farmland in which Hobbiton/The Shire was constructed. Originally, I heard that the farmer had wanted the set removed but after realising what a huge success these films have been ('The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King' (2003, Peter Jackson) is no.11 highest grossing films of all time! and picked up 11 Oscars!) he decided to leave it in place and it is now a huge tourist attraction.


The next location I would like to visit is Lake Squam. This is where 'On Golden Pond' (1981, Mark Rydell) was filmed, the first film I blogged about! Me an my mum would love to visit this idillic lake located near Sandwhich in America. It is her favourite film, and I love it too! so it would be perfect to visit the real place where it all happened.

Finally, I would like to visit Rockport  Massachusetts, USA. This is where some scenes from 'The Proposal' (2009, Anne Fletcher). Now as well as being my favourite rom-com ! This film actually contains some stunning locations, such as the island that Andrew's family own and live on. I would like to visit here not just because of the film, but because of the beauty.

Thankyou For The Music

Films would not be the sound without their iconic soundtracks to match. There are so many different ones to choose from so it's been difficult but I have picked a list of top 5, not necessarily the best but the 5 that I could never get bored of listening too.

5- 'Guardians Of The Galaxy' ( 2014, James Gunn. Music By Tyler Bates) - 'Come and Get Your Love' (Redbone) . This is one of the best opening sequences I have seen. It was completely different to what I was expecting! As protagonist Peter Quill explores a new planet, we are witness to a humorous dance sequence to start the film. It sets an enjoyable tone for the remainder of the film, making it one of my top 5.

4-Hairspray (2007, Adam Shankman. Music By Marc Shaiman)- 'You Can't Stop the Beat'  . This is one of my favourite films, particularly as it stars John Travolta as Tracey's mother, Edna Turnblad! But it also has a much deeper meaning about racial segregation which sends out a powerful message. There are several great songs throughout this film, but my favourite is the final song - 'You Can't Stop the Beat'- I can't lie , I always feel the need to dance along with this song and it leaves me feeling uplifted, much like the characters in the film! You can't help but feel happy after watching this film which is why it is fourth on my top 5 film songs!




3- 'National Lampoons Christmas Vacation' (1989, Jeremiah S. Chechik. Music By Angelo Badalamenti)- 'Christmas Vacation Theme' (Mavis Staples)  - for as long as I can remember, every year a few weeks before Christmas it has been tradition in my family to spend a day buying and decorating a Christmas tree followed by dinner and watching 'National Lampoons Christmas Vacation'. I know all the jokes but this film makes me laugh every time! It follows the story of Clark Griswold who dreams of hosting the perfect family Christmas, needless to say, things do not go according to plan! This is my favourite Christmas film and the opening theme song marks the start of my Christmas every year




2-'Harry Potter' (2001- 2011, Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newel, David Yates)- 'Hedwig's Theme' (John Williams), If any song were to make me believe in magic it would be this one! This iconic track has repeatedly occurred as I've been growing up and today it still sparks excitement. I am currently re-watching all the Harry Potter's and recently visited the Warner Brother studios, Leavesden. This track defines the Harry Potter franchise and is recognisable to people across the world. I think it represents the huge success of Harry Potter, placing it second on my top 5 film tracks!

1- 'Pirates of The Caribbean' (2003 - , Gore Verbinski, Rob Marshall) 'He's A Pirate' (Klaus Badelt) - And finally number 1 on my list! I absolutely love this song, so much so me and my sister have learnt to duet it on piano! It ignites the same initial excitement I felt watching Pirates of The Caribbean for the first time. It is a powerful piece of music that reoccurs in every film and hopefully will arise again in 2017 with the next instalment following the life of Captain Jack Sparrow!

Looking forward

There are of course lots of films that I am wanting to watch! But there a couple of new releases that I am particularly looking forward to.

The first is Disney Pixar's 'Inside Out' (2015, Pete Docter) . I  am a huge Pixar fan and their next release doesn't seem like it will disappoint! 'Inside Out' plunges us into the mind of teenager Riley as she is forced to move to San Francisco. Her emotions - joy, sadness, fear, anger and disgust must work together to help Riley adjust to her new life. from only watching the trailer, this film appears to inventively capture the thoughts that run through our minds. Humourous and an incredibly clever idea I can't wait to watch this film. What strikes me most is the originality of the idea, Pixar are continuously developing ideas that we have not seen before which only makes the film all the more appealing.

In complete contrast to this, I am also looking forward to 'Amy' (2015, Asif Kapadia). I studied his film 'Senna' (2010, Kapadia) for my exams, and can truly say it is one of the best films I have seen. Apart from an assortment of interviews, 'Senna' is completely made up of archival footage. It makes us feel we are getting a real insight into Senna's life. Yet Kapadia constructs the footage in a fictional way (perhaps due to his fictional filmmaking background) to develop conflict between Senna and Prost making us empathise with Senna, engaging us in the film. I am interested to see how much of this is reflected in 'Amy' and whether a similar style is used. I have read that Amy's family are unhappy with the way they have been portrayed, perhaps suggesting Kapadia has recreated the conflict element that arose in 'Senna', applying fictional techniques to this documentary in order to make it more engaging. It raises the question as to how truthful these films actually are. I do not know that much about Amy's life and I hope that 'Amy' will provide an insight, however it is important to keep in mind that this is one perspective of the truth, constructed to be engaging for an audience. All the same I am definitely looking forward to seeing this film.