Main Post 4: Group Meeting

Below are the minutes from a group meeting we held, of which we discused what sort of opening we were going to do and all suggested some ideas for the opening some ofwhich were used others which were not.  

Main Post 3a: Further look at opening sequences

Main Post 3: Research into Opening Sequence Designs

I watched these two interviews and took note of what was said, to see if it would help me and my group decide on our opening sequence.

The first thing i noticed from watching these interviews was that the main objective for any films opening sequences is that it needs to attract viewers and audiences making them grasp and keep people in there seats as Kyle Cooper said. From watching these two interviews, I found out a lot of interesting information of which will help my group. In one of the videos, Kyle Cooper mentioned that it was important that an opening sequence, hooks the audience and makes them want to see and watch whats going to happen in the rest of the film and also has to set up certain expectations for the rest of the film. This will influence what we put and use in our opening sequence as we don't want it to drag or be boring. It was also said that it is not always unnecessary to use computer generated images as there are other more simple ways/methods that could be used, that can create the same feel. I also noted that you have to think outside the box to get something unique and original and that experimenting is always good as it allows you to try new things and come up with strange yet interesting techniques and designs, not everything has a reason sometimes things either just happen or are accidental.

Another piece of advice I picked up from watching the Interviews was that the typography should and needs to suit and fit in with the genre of the film. For example in the interview Kyle Cooper talks about the opening sequence to Se7en, of which he goes into how and explains how the written journals and the names of the crew all appear on the screen to be hand written, which links to the story line of the film and creates a feel to whats to happen. Below are some images of the typography of which Kyle Cooper talks about.

Overall from watching both parts of this interview and seeing and understanding what Kyle Cooper had to say, I feel that it has helped us as a group to decided and come up with more ideas for our opening sequence and will hopefully help us create a good opening sequence with interesting typography that will fit with our chosen genre. In  the interview Cooper states that "it is important to get the opening sequence right as it can set expectations for the rest of the film" As a group we aim to seize this in our end opening sequence.

Main Post 2: Choosing my Genres

I found choosing my genre very hard as there are so many different genres. Here is a list of a few of the most popular and main fiction genres from the film industry such as...
Action Adventure
Crime
Fantasy
Horror
Romance
Science Fiction 
Mystery/detective.

 I believe that the most popular genre would be comedy, science fiction or an action based film as such a wide range of films fit/come under this title. So to find out as a group, what the most popular genre is and why, I gave out 15 questionnaires to relatives and friends of all ages to find out. 

Here is a screen shot of our Questionnaire we handed out.

Here are the results from our questionnaires:

As a group we found it difficult to decide on a Genre to base our opening sequence on, but after looking at our questionnaire results and completing individual research about different genres we decided on creating an action adventure opening sequence. We also chose this genre as it was our second best result from our questionnaires, we would have gone with the first best but it was a comedy and we all thought it would be difficult to create this in our opening sequence.

Here is a link to a useful website of which helped me to understand and find out what the Top genres of 2012 are going to be. The hobbit and the hunger games both being in the top 5 which was to be expected. 

http://www.rantingdragon.com/twenty-anticipated-genre-films-in-2012/

http://moviedistributionfacts.wordpress.com/tag/popular-movie-genres/

Main Post 1: Conventions of an Opening Sequence

Our main task is to create an opening title sequence for a film. In doing this we will need to research the conventions of opening titles in order to see what I should use and what I shouldn't use in my opening sequence.

FILM 1: I started my research looking at the opening scene of The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo.

The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo - Opening Sequence

here is the title of the film of which
gets covered away halfway through
the opening sequence.

The piece is full off non diegetic music, the rhythm of the sound tract is upbeat and has a fast tempo, which creates a sense of urgency  The sound effects used add more depth to the piece and create an irregular and uncomfortable feel for the audience to experience. The music has been chosen as gives an insight to what the film is going to be about, it also suggests that the film is going to be action packed and full of unusual things. Rock music with a twist has been used, it has a strong base and is very upbeat and modern. Also as it is a well known song (a cover of "immigrant") it gives something for the audience to relate too. I feel that the music works well with the piece as it creates a quite intense effect and contrasts well, with the unique and unusual images that emerge throughout the extract - which are all synchronized with the footage in one way or another with added sound effects to make the piece more dramatic.

Through out the extract of the opening scene their are lots of extreme close ups of which have been used to enhance certain, specific objects. At the begging of the piece its starts with a master shot of the sea in deep blue and mono chrome colours, this sets the mood for the rest of the opening, as the tempo speeds up the piece becomes more dramatic and exaggerated. Most of the piece would have been done using CGI as seems to come across quite fake and unrealistic, but is effective at the same time as creates a futuristic feel.

Low Key Lighting has been used throughout the opening scene to create a sense of danger and to create a sense of not knowing whats in the darkness. The body language of the people in the footage gives of a creepy vibe and the screen shot below suggests the film is going to be quite intense. At the begging of the extract quick flashes of images appear in unison to the music - this gets the audience involved as they are able to follow the beat as well as viewing visual unconventional images and makes you pay attention to whats happening on screen, which is effective.

Here are two screen shots taken from the opening sequence as examples of the colour scheme and a suggestion of the unconventional objects.

Information about Genre:

Suspense and Crime are genre's that are included and have been based around within the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. Crime Fiction has always traditionally been seen as a male dominated genre but since 1990's there has been a witnessed boom in the crime fiction created by women and female protagonists. This is suggested in this film as it was quite popular within both female and male audiences. I would say that that the opening sequence to this extract is very male orientated as is very suspicious and dark. But from a females perspective i appreciate this open sequence and find it very open and set the audience up and put them in the right mind set for the film there about to see.



FILM 2: Research looking at the Opening Sequence of Avengers.

The Avengers - Opening Sequence 

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-avengers/

In the opening sequence for the Avengers, we are firstly introduced with intricate close ups, of moving images, of buckles and pieces of costume from the film itself.  The extreme close-ups allow the audience to be drawn closer and to get more involved with what is happening. The canted angle creates the feeling of disorientation.

The opening sequence is full of non digetic music and has a high beat consistent  the whole way throughout the sequence. I appreciate the choice for sounds and music as they come together and contrast well in a manner that they create a sense of adventure and get the audience in the frame of mind and excited to watch the film, which is the general expectation of any opening sequence. The  chosen sound tract for this opening sequence allows the audiences get involved and  creates an explicit atmosphere within the piece, when the  main bass drops it dramatists the sequence and creates the perfect opening sequence for an action adventure film.

The extreme close ups of images shown throughout the extract create the sense of the un-known and makes the audience think about what each element could be or represent, which allows the audience to get involved with the opening sequence,. The images of super hero costumes and aspects and weapons they use is effective as allows you to link each feature to main components and characters of the film. The dim lit and low key lighting used in some places of the extract contrasts with the sudden bright lights and fundamentals of the innaviative and effective piece.


Information about Genre:
 The Avengers is an Action and a Science fiction film. The Avengers is based on and around the marvel comic book series, and includes characters from each comic including Iron man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America. All of which have come together to create an epic big screen adventure, which consists of all the comic super hero's teaming up to work together  create a dramatic, action packed film. Overall I would say this film is mainly aimed at male audiences due to it being rather stereotypical that boys/men read and have a better acknowledgement of comic books. But from watching and analyzing the opening sequence It comes across as though it was made to target female and male audiences  due to the vast amount of inative designs and views also isn't dark or daunting but quite exuberant and exciting.

Post 12: Independant Work Towards Targets

Here is a table of which one of my group members created to help make it easier to find out what days and at what time each member were free so that we could all work together and help each other out. 

Post 11: Targets

Post 10: Evaluation Of Skills Developed

Here is our Finished Prelim Final Video:

Creative Skills

We have each individually developed are creative skills during this preliminary task, we have done this by developing solutions to our problems and being able to brainstorm and come up with different ideas, that we were able to finalize to make our finished film. We have also enhanced and improved our creative thinking and have been able to put and make our ideas come to life by creating this short film.

Technical Skills

I feel that I have personally developed my technical skills through this task as I have learnt many new terms such as about different camera techniques and have learnt all about how to edit a piece of work in Adobe Premier. I started with basic knowledge and have been able to slowly develop my skills over the last few weeks.  I also now know how to use a camera and capture footage from the camera to the computer and now have a much wider and better perspective about the editing suit and how to use the technology and programs within.

Personal Skills

After completing the preliminary task, I feel that personally I have widened my learning and have been able to develop my understanding and knowledge of media. I also feel that in the time period we had that as a group we have worked really well and have each developed are abilities to work as a group and get on and complete the task at hand, progressing through and over coming any issues and problems that arose.

Post 9: Post Production Stage

As a group we decided and organised what days we were free to edit, so that we were able to book the editing suit during a handful of our lunch times, free/study periods and the odd lesson time so that we had enough time to edit our footage appropriately and to a high standard. We set a rota as well so that there was always at least two members of the group editing to help minimize crowding around the edit suit. 

As I have never edited before, I wanted to take charge and be head editor, so that I got a better understanding as i went along and could learn all the new, interesting editing techniques with guidance from my group members. Once we finished capturing and had edited our shots together we locked our video tracks so that we didn't ruin or change our footage when we were adding in our chosen audio tracks and by using the dots sound adjusting tool, we was able to fade the different tracks and fade out unwanted noises easily without having to cut them out which would have lost us valuable footage. 

We have and are going to create and insert a title at the begging and insert credits at the end of our preliminary sequence, adding transitions so that everything runs smoothly into one another and has a finished look about it.

Here are a number of screen shots, of which document sections of our editing.



This shot shows Sally walking down the corridor, (from scene 2) In this screen shot we can see the layout of the editing suit and program adobe premier. In the lower section of the image, it shows the timeline of which we have started to edit and capture different shots and scenes, to form our final short film.

This screen shot shows an over the shoulder view of Paul talking to Sally, This shows the same as the above image, except is at a different point in the footage. Each little section/square in the time line is a different individual shot of which we will slowly put together to create and form each scene then moving on to edit together our short film.



This shot shows a zoom in of the adobe premier timeline of which we are editing our work in. We have put all of our footage in the video 1 row and put the audio for each shot in the Audio 1 row.  The red play line, is used to indicate and show where about, we are watching the footage and used to move around/along the piece, it is a key aspect used in editing and makes it easier to know where in the piece we are also is used to help razor sections of the footage as help get to the exact spot you want.



Post 8: Production Report

PRODUCTION PROCESS

How did the shoot go? and What problems did you encounter? 

The footage we shot as a group was generally okay. We came across a number of problems during filming, one being that we didn't leave enough time between the Clapper Board and the actors speaking, which caused problems during editing as our shots we captured were very short. Another problem that arose was that as a group we accidentally recorded  over some of our film, which meant we had to re-film certain sections making sure the actors wore the same costumes and looked the same so there were no continuity errors in our final outcome.

How did you over come these problems? 

We over come these problems by staying calm and organised, making sure that everyone in our group knew what they were doing and what needed to be done. We re-filmed the sections/scenes we lost as quick and efficiently as possible, so that we could crack on with our editing.

How well did you work as team?  

I feel and believe we worked well as team because we were able to plan and divide out the different aspects of the task between the four of us so we all had an even amount of work to do, also so that we could get the project finished to the best of our abilities as a group. We were able to help and guide one another and was easy and comfortable to share and contribute ideas and everyone listened to what each member of the group had to say.

What do you think of the footage you shot? 

Overall I would say our footage is generally okay for a first attempt, but now feel that after learning all the different techniques and aspects behind the scenes in media (such as camera skills and important tips and facts)  that we could have created a much better short film, but would have needed more time.

Are there any areas for improvement in the technical execution? 

- leave a 5 second pre-role in between each shoot which would have left more time between each line and director saying action, making it slightly easier to capture our shots during editing.

- Also there is one shot that is slightly out of focus, so if have enough time at end, will have to re shoot, if not instead will just have to make sure that next time we always check that the camera is fully in focus for each take to prevent and blurry or out of focus shots.

Now as a consequence of the footage we shot, we may have to re shoot certain shots from scene three due to that fact that one or two of the shots jump together which was not the original effect we wanted to create.

- An improvement for next time would be for the actors to repeat movements, too help avoid any quick, sharp edits/cuts, so that each shot moves smoothly into another, rather than chopping to next scene.

-Over filming sections and scenes from different angles would also help as would give more footage to work with and would have made the piece more interesting.

Have you abided by the rules of continuity? 

I believe we have abided the rules of continuity as we have not crossed the 180 degree line and have made sure that our eye lines match up. We have included everything that was specified in the brief which included of match on action, 180 degree rule and the 30 degree rule in our short film. We have tried to make each shot flow smoothly into one another to create a finished clean piece.

Post 7: Additional Pre-Production Documentation

LOCATION RECCE:

TECHNICAL RECCE:

To prepare filming there are a few problems which could affect our filming during production. As we will be mostly be using natural light from the windows if weather forecasts predict bad storms it could make lighting more darker ruining the mood of the film. Another problematic situation is if the camera malfunctions and we are incapable of filming this could delay our timetable in which we use to plan out our shooting schedule.

As we are filming in the English room there is a chance that the room could be booked or locked restricting our access to the English room, or problems of people not part of the cast could come in causing chaos on set. Props are also at risk of breaking or not working as we have a scene of phones sending texts if the phones don’t work at the time it could ruin the text scene.

During the close up of the feet scene people could walk down the corridor student could come out of class and accidently come into shot  going against continuity. Also during the feet scene we use unnatural light meaning if the lights short circuit it could be impossible to film with no light at all.

RISK ASSESSMENTS:

SHOOTING SCHEDULE:

MISE - EN - SCENE DESCRIPTION:

Set Design/Location

The room is spacious and is a perfect school setting of a class room. It has 4 windows on one side of the room, with navy blue carpet; there are large lights on the roof creating a lit environment to work in, we placed the table at the back of the room.

Props

One light brown table and two blue chairs opposite sides of the table. We will use this layout for the props as it is a realistic set out. Another key prop is a mobile phone of which will be kept in characters pockets until it needs to be used.

Lighting

The main source of light will be the natural light coming from the many windows in the English room, we will be also using artificial lighting that is already provided to help make sure the audience can see everything that’s happening in the scene.

Character Movement

At the start of the filming PAUL is sitting in the class room on his own texting SALLY there is no monolog in this scene, SALLY then walks into the room and sits opposite to PAUL at the table. After the two characters have spoken their dialogue, PAUL gets up and goes to comfort SALLY, SALLY storms out and slams door behind her. We chose this character movement as it is straight to the point and has enough going on to show different shots.   

Costume

SALLY: Black body-con skirt, blue jumper and denim shirt.

PAUL: Navy Body warmer, black trousers, smart shoes and a t-shirt.

These costumes are everyday ware, and realistic to our situation as the characters are meant to be natural.

Hair / Make-up

SALLY: Hair tied up in bun, simple face make up.

PAUL: Hair, no-make up.

CAST, CREW, EQUIPMENT and PROPS LISTS:

Post 6: Shot List and Story Board

SHOT LIST

A Shot List is a table that details all of the shots that need to be story boarded. This shot list will help us later in our preliminary task by helping us to schedule the production and also assists us when out on shoot as a quick reference guide. Here is my groups Shot List.

SOUND CLOUD - voice recording of our group talking about all our decisions has been posted on my group member Mollie Buggs blog. 

STORY BOARD

Post 5: Different Shots/Cuts

Jump Cut, Over the Shoulder shots, Cutaways and Point of view shots are terms that are heard and used frequently in the film industry. Below are my own brief definitions of what each cut is, does and why it is effective. 

JUMP CUT

A Jump Cut is a cut where two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary only slightly, this type of edit causes the subject of the shots to appear to 'jump' position in a discontinuous way. I find this cut effective and useful as it helps save time for example if you have someone walking down stairs which would be quite boring to watch you could jump cut so that you only see quick shots of the person walking down, saving time.

OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT

Over the Shoulder shot is a shot of someone or something taken from perspective from the shoulder of another person, the back of the other persons shoulder and head is used to frame what the camera is pointing towards in my case the person there talking to. I find this shot effective as its helps to establish the position of each person and helps to get the feel of looking at one person from other's point of view. Here below I have taken photographs of a common example of two people during a conversation  as you can alternate the view between the different speakers.

CUTAWAYS 

A Cutaway Shot is the interruption of a continuously filmed action, by inserting a view of something else. It could be off a different subject, a close up of a different part of the subject or just about anything else, for example to show this I have taken photographs of someone walking down stairs and have cutaway to the persons hand on the banister. I find Cutaway Shots effective when used correctly as they can help add drama, tension and sometimes make films more interesting as it helps add more information and depth about whats going on. 

POINT OF VIEW SHOTS

Point of View Shots is a shot that shows what a character is looking at. It is the view from the subjects perspective, It is usually edited in such a way that it is obvious of whose point of view it is. I find this shot effective as it shows the audience where the character is and what there looking at, giving  them a better understanding of whats going on and what the character is thinking adding more detail to the scene/film.

Post 4: Script Writing

My own Additional brief Explanation:

In addition to the group comments added on the script, I believe we may have a few potential continuity issues with our script for example (Scene 1) when Sally opens the door and goes to sit down, we have to make sure that we cut the shot with the door in the exact place on the opposite side so that the short film is more effective, so that the shot reverse shot of her walking in matches perfectly together once edited. Another continuity problem could be when Sally touches Paul's shoulder if we don't cut it in the right place that may cause problems as even a subtle character movement can ruin a clip and cause problems.

Another continuity issue could be when Sally's walking down/along the corridor, When filming this scene we will have to make sure that (Sally) starts walking from the same place, each time we re-take the shot otherwise there would be a jump cut of her moving down and up the corridor which is not the effect we want to create.

Post 3: Continuity

Continuity is a system of cutting used to maintain a continuous and clear narrative action by following a set of rules, in other words you have to make sure the scene is the same three out takes, so if you stopped filming and carry on the next day the scene looks identical.

Here is an example from terminator 3 where continuity has not been used properly. As you can see clearly the number on the tail of the plane changes throughout the film. This is a key example that shows that it is highly important to keep continuity in a film because it can confuse the viewer also ruins the effect of the film and reminds the viewer that its not real as it makes the film less believable.




Here is an internet link that takes you to a website i found that explains continuity in a media context, in more detail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_(fiction)

180 Degree Rule - The angle between only two consecutive shots should not exceed 180 degrees, in order to maintain spatial relationships between people and objects in any given sequence of shots.

Internet Link for further information  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180-degree_rule

Crossing the Line (Reverse Cut) - Refers to an Imaginary line which cuts through the middle of the scene, from side to side with respect to the camera. By doing this the viewers perspective changes in such a way that it sometimes causes detonation and confusion.

This is a diagram showing 180 degree rule and crossing the line.
This makes it clearer to understand.

Internet Link for further Information http://www.mediacollege.com/video/editing/transition/reverse-cut.html
Shot/Reverse Shot - Two shots edited together that alternate characters, typically in a conversational situation.

Internet Link for further information  http://www.artoftheguillotine.com/index.php?page=shotreverseshot

Match On Action - A cut between two shots that places two different framing's of the same action next to each other, making it seem to continue uninterrupted.

Internet Link for further Information http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2JKjy35KRw