Thursday 17th December

Editing Day 4

Today I was able to add the rest of the titles to the video, and frame them up nicely. I have received feedback from the teacher and I need to change the "Starring" of the first title, as it is not the correct wording for this type of film.



Then we were able to record and quickly put on the voice-over. This resulted in the same part of the voiceover being played twice andI will need to fix that later.

Wednesday 16th December

Editing Day 3

Today the rest of the raw footage has been added and has been roughly edited. The acting from Billy Byrne is being harmful to the sequence as it makes it all less believable. I have made a plan to change the temperature and colouring of the bit we film next term if it isn't raining, to give the impression that it's going to rain and its getting darker. The sound effect of a bell has been added to the end of the  sequence, to symbolise the film has only just begun.

Monday 14th December

Editing day 2 Today we added some more of the raw footage to the sequence from the second day of filming. There are still some audio problems that I will sort out later.

I managed to put together a second edit that included the title of the film. I did this by making the animation in "Keynote" and exporting it into "IMovie". This is the same method I will use to add the opening titles for the cast and crew.

Friday 11th December

Filming Day 2

Today we filmed the second part of the opening sequence. Although we may need to re-film the first part due to continuity sake as the weather wasn't the same as the first day of filming. Because of the rain, the wet floor doesn't match unto earlier parts in the sequence. During this part of the sequence the main Director of Photography wasn't available, so instead Chis Rowe assisted my partner Natalie Lewis, in obtaining the hard to reach angles, because she couldn't reach them.

The actors we wanted were still not available, so I gathered some secondary actors that were on hand. This resulted in some immature behaviour during the filming, so it took longer than we expected. We will re-film this section with different actors after the Christmas break.


We have gathered enough raw footage to be able to be able to create the first rough edit of the sequence, and will begin editing on Monday. On Monday my partner will begin to plan when we can record the voice-over for the sequence, as that is one of the last things we need to do.

Thursday 10th December

Today I created the first edit of the opening sequence. From the feedback I knew that the dialogue from my actor couldn't be heard by the audience very well. To fix this I took the audio from when the camera was closer to the actor. This appears to link up perfectly, and doesn't present any further problems.

Wednesday 9th December

Filming Day 1

We had originally planned to film the second half of our opening sequence today, however, because most of our cast has become unavailable we have had to re-plan.

Fortunately the actor who plays the main character, Dylan, is available for filing today, so we will be filming the first half of the opening sequence instead.

I quickly made a shot-list that we can use later during the filming to obtain the more controlled shots. I needed to make some changes from feedback other groups have gained from filming already. The shortlist for today has more match-on-action in response to their feedback.

Character Profiles

Main characters

Dylan

Age: 16
General physical description: Medium height, curly brown hair
Hometown: London

Position in family: Only child
Family relationships: Good relationship with parents
Attitude toward school: Positive, good student, slightly scared at the pressure of starting a new one.
Hobbies: Reading, Army Cadets, Baking cakes
Dress style: Casual, fairly tidy as it's the first day at school and is nervous
Leader or follower: Follower
Positive personality trait: Laidback, Interested in English Language
Negative personality trait: Doesn't stand up for himself, Fairly physically weak
How other people see him: The new kid at school, Dark horse (Everyone is unsure)
Other traits, especially those to be brought out in story: Understanding/sympathetic
Most important thing to know about character: He's not your typical shy new kid, Will always be there for you when it matters
Favourite music: Retro 

The audience should connect with this character the most and feel sympathy for him as he will be portrayed as vulnerable. The story shows his empathy and ability to help and befriend others. 

Amy

Age: 16
General physical description:
Hometown: Birmingham

Attitude toward school: Doesn't try very hard but hard enough to not get kicked out
Hobbies: Smoking, Watching TOWIE and MIC
Dress style: Casual
Leader or follower: Follower
Positive personality trait: Gives people a chance if they look like they deserve one
Negative personality trait: Bitchy, Talks behind peoples backs
How other people see her: Carl's bitchy girlfriend, Only her friends know anything about her
Other traits, especially those to be brought out in story: Can be friendly, Is only mean when she believes people are mean to her.
Favourite music: Pop /OneDirection

Amy is the second character that people should connect with the most as she's the first person we see on screen that gives Dylan a chance and isn't particularly mean to him. This creates questions with the audience as she's firstly portrayed as a mean girl when she walks in with Carl and Luke. Amy is actually quite a kind person when she's being herself, as she secretly feels bad when Carl is rude to people.

Luke

Age: 16
General physical description:
Hometown: Birmingham

Attitude toward school: Pretends to be dumber than he is so doesn't achieve full potential to fit in with the laid-back attitude of his friends.
Hobbies: Smoking, Watching QI
Dress style: Casual but slightly messy
Leader or follower: Follower
Positive personality trait: Nice around people that aren't Carl, Supportive of his single mother, always avoids getting in trouble
Negative personality trait: Copies the bad behaviour of Carl, Doesn't understand his own flaws, Cocky
How other people see him: As Carl's sidekick / Best-friend, slimy cockroach
Favourite music: Jazz

Luke often feels like he owes Carl as they've been friends for a long time, so he tends to copy him to fit in with him. He and Amy have a fairly strong friendship as they hang out a lot with Carl. Luke wants to succeed in school but again, he feels like he has to act the way Carl does to still be friends with him.

Carl

Age: 16
General physical description:
Hometown: Birmingham

Attitude toward school: Doesn't really care, only goes because his father tells him to
Hobbies: Smoking, Finding people to make fun of, Jogging
Dress style: Casual but slightly messy
Leader or follower: Leader
Positive personality trait: Loving towards the people he cares about, Listens to his dad
Negative personality trait: Doesn't care about many people, Impulsive
Favourite music: Rap/Hip-Hop

Carl is the dominant member of the 3 friends and often puts people down, expecting Luke to follow his actions. He also expects Amy, his girlfriend, to go along with what he's saying but Amy questions him when he's rude to Dylan. Their dynamic changes as Amy becomes more up standing to Carl. He often says things without thinking and feels powerful from this.

By Natalie Lewis and Oliver Favell

Props, Location, Fashion and Risk Assesment

Evaluated the risks that would be involved in the production of our film, and then created a table to show all of these.

By Natalie Lewis

Fashion

Generally speaking what the male actors will be wearing normally should be OK. However the female actor and the main actor should take extra consideration into their clothing. For example, the main actor shouldn't wear any hoodies or ripped jeans, and should instead wear a long sleeve jumper and light blue jeans.

The above picture is a good example of what I would like the main actor to be wearing. This gives the impression they are soft and cuddly, and would be appealing to the target audience.

I would like one of the side characters to wear headphones like in the above picture, to show their character goes deeper than just a threatening face.

The side actors can wear any kind of hoodie; because if it is bright and has colourful writing on it then it would show their cocky nature, but if it is dark then it would be symbolic of their attitudes towards the main character.

I would like the female actor to wear dark clothing as to show she is unapproachable and it would also be symbolic of her attitudes towards the main character.

Location

The main problem with the location for the start of the sequence is that the lighting from the sun this time of year isn't very useful for filming. This means that the hours of when we can film are going to be restricted. It would be best to film during the middle of the day, because as well as the lighting being an issue, when all of the film crew can be there would be an issue. The location we would like to film is a relatively long drive away from lots of the crew's homes. This means that we would need to film in private study sessions during our school day. This makes it very fortunate that all of the cast and crew go to the same sixth-form.

The sound isn't as much as an issue as we originally thought. This is because there is only going to be a small bit of diegetic sound at the very start of the opening sequence. This however could be fixed if necessary in post-production, by having the actor speak his lines closer to the microphone in the camera and layering that audio on top of the video of the scene.

In the second half of the scene the lighting would feel better because of the artificial lighting we can create. This will give us partial control of the lights in the rooms we are using. It would be best if we closed the blinds/curtains in the rooms we're using so that we have more control and shape to the light. It would also help to keep the lighting more consistent if we needed to film over multiple days, so we wouldn't be required to film at the same time of day.

The sound in the later scenes will also be much better because the rooms we're planning on using have little-to-no echo in them, thanks to their carpeted floors. As before, if the audio quality of the actors voices weren't at the standard we were expecting to produce, we can re-record them in a better audio room/studio.

By Oliver Favell

Typography

For the typography I looked into many different fonts online (mainly on dafont.com) and then picked my 3 favourites that I thought would suit our genre of film. I then asked 25 people to pick which font they thought was best suited and made a tally chart of the results.



































The winning font was Blee Guys ES as most people liked that one and thought it would fit best with our opening sequence. Several people said they chose it because it was the font that stood out the most, so they thought that would be useful.

Order of titles

Institutions 

Title of film

Actors

Casting director (Casting by)

Costume designer 

Co-producer (Co-produced by)

Music

Editing (Edited by)

Director of photography
Executive producers
Producers
Writers (Written by)
Directors (Directed by)

By Natalie Lewis

Storyboard and Shot List

Storyboards

By Oliver Favell

Shot List

Spelling error: "Extra Notes" Shot 1 *Institutions 

SECOND/ UPDATED SHOT LIST

By Natalie Lewis

Final Script

ORIGINAL SCRIPT

By Natalie Lewis

SECOND/ UPDATED SCRIPT

By Natalie Lewis

Sound

 This music will start after the first 10 seconds of the storyboard and continue until the music ends, when Dylan is sat in the classroom and the director is shown on the screen.

This music will link to the target audience because the 'lyrics' are sung by young people. This makes their voices more appealing to 12-19 year olds. The music reinforces the genre of the film as it shows the lightheartedness of youth and how they can build on themselves and become better people.

I asked my friend Jordan if I could use the music he composed for a web-series, as I had his permission I ripped it from Youtube and edited it so it fit our opening sequence correctly and flowed smoothly for the length we needed.

This is royalty free music I found on YouTube. This will be useful for parts of the sequence when there is no audio, and it doesn't sound right.

Update

A newer version of the song has been released to Youtube. This version is longer and has vocals in it. This means that the music won't require looping at any point or any of my rough cuts to help it stretch on for longer. This prevents the music from getting repetitive and boring. This is going to be the new music for the sequence.

Extra Sound Effects

We found this un copyrighted sound effect on youtube, that we will put in during the editing for the final shot. We may need to cut the sound so it will fit in the timing of the 2 second shot.

By Natalie Lewis & Oliver Favell

Audience Profile

Concept/ Final Idea

First ideas

By Natalie Lewis & Oliver Favell





Final ideas

By Natalie Lewis

Preliminary

It would be easier to plan by visiting a location beforehand and looking at all the different possible shots.
Making sure that my sequence doesn't break the 180 degree rule is difficult during planning and so should be changed during filming if necessary.
The audio in a film is difficult to get the same throughout all of the different shots.
It is more difficult than expected to create continuity within a piece of film during editing.
Not many things can be fixed during the editing process, so shots should be re-filmed multiple times so I could pick the best shots.

Storyboard

Analyse Previous Students Work

 Original video

Different uses of sound and music can create a desired atmosphere with an audience.
Not many lines in a script are needed to create an impactful opening scene.
The few amount of actors help to show what the direction of the narrative really is.

Representation in films and Title Research

From this I have learnt:

• The social groups are represented  by the clothing they wear. It shows what group they belong to and what their personality is like.
Title research from Ollie Favell

Director Case Study

This reflects Hughes style and use of comedy in is narratives. When thinking of some of Hughes' films I think of films like Home Alone, The Breakfast club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. All of these films have been known for being classics in their own right, but they each have their own unique different use of comedy. Home Alone is very 'slapstick-esc', Ferris Bueller's Day Off has a great use of facial expressions and the Breakfast club uses comedy through perfect storytelling.

In my own film opening I could use interesting uses of facial expressions to create a lighthearted feel for the rest of the film. Alternatively, a Home Alone style opening could be used to set an early plot and develop relationships for all characters early on.

From this I have learnt:

• The themes of a film should be established within the opening sequence, this can be done through narration or character's action.
• A large portion of Hughes work sets early scenes with portion of humour. This establishes the genre early and engages the target audience.

Audience Research

From this I have decided:

• The individual characters and their look need to be interesting and engaging.
• It would be possible to do my sequence in a school setting, as the target audience would relate to it and it would be easy to film.
• The wider audiences do not consciously pay attention to details like, camera angles, and costume. Unless they are extreme.

Narrative Structure

From this I have learnt:

• I need to reveal key narrative points in the opening sequence, such as; who is the hero and what is he like, and where the majority of the film will be set.
• A soundtrack is needed in the background, under the narration in the opening scene.
• When the narration ends, the music needs to stop and portion of action needs to take place.

Distributors and Producers

From this I have learnt:

• There are not many film producers and distributors in the U.K that I am able to use
• I will need to carefully decide which companies I will use and make sure they fit the codes and conventions of my film
• I am surprised at the number of distributors and producers that are based in the UK.

Conventions of an Opening Sequence

The target audience for Toy Story is 3-18 year olds. I know this because while the setting of many different toys coming alive may seem childish, because of how long this series has been going on, the older viewers are aimed at by the company by taking advantage of their nostalgia.

Video created by Alistair Grimsell

The target audience for Easy A is 15-18 year olds. This is because it centres around a teen high-school girl and the rumours about her. I know this because in the first two minutes of the film a large portion of the setting is established and the main character takes camera centre. From this we can identify the age of the main characters and therefore who the film is aimed at.

I have learnt that in my opening scenes I need to include:

• The setting should be made clear to the audience
• Main characters requires close ups to show their importance
• Some of the themes for the film should be made obvious

Coming of Age Films Timeline

From this task I have learnt that coming of age films throughout history have the following codes and conventions:

• A lesson must be learned, but does not need to be by the main protagonist.
• The main protagonist, whom the film centres must be under, or equal to, 18 years old.
• There doesn't need to be a distinctive antagonist.
• Romance can be prominent but is not a necessary genre.
• The protagonist has, but is not restricted to, two side-kicks that help them out. They can be best friends at the start, or the movie is a bonding experience between them.
• The title is funny and/or quirky.

Film Opening Observations Mind-map

Jersey Boys Fury

I have learnt that opening sequences have the following codes and conventions:

• The title fades into view or is made from part of the scenery.
• The genre is set, along with the general mood of the film.
• In some of the heavier films narration is used to set the plot.
• The date is shown as text on screen as part of the exposition.
• The director as part of the opening credits is always last.
• Names and relationships are established.