Friday 4 March 2011

Our final title sequence.

Evaluation.

Evaluation.

BRIEF: To create a title sequence and the opening scene of a new film.

GENRE: Action/Thriller

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Before we started creating our title sequence, I looked into the typical codes and conventions found in a title sequence and looked closer into the types of codes and conventions that would be in a title sequence of a similar genre to our sequence.

Throughout our title sequence we tried to use the codes and conventions that we believe suited the scenes. We used a variety of codes and conventions that we used in our final title sequence, we used a range of camera shots, remembering to stick to the rules. However, we didn’t find this very restricting whilst filming, we had a lot of freedom with our filming. Had one element that ran through most of the title sequence which was overlapping film, we had two film pieces running at the same time but moving in different directions, which then created the twisted effect that, we had hoped to create. It also gave the audience more of an insight to the narrative.

Looking at different codes and conventions involved in title sequences helped us to make our title sequence better overall as it encouraged us to create a more successful title sequence and make it look more professional than it would had we not used the codes and conventions available to us. I think the title of our sequence give the audience an idea of what the film could be about but doesn’t give too much away that the audience could guess what film storyline as it isn’t so straight forward as it may seem. We decided it would be good to look into other words associated with ‘kidnap’ as our narrative was to do with a girl being kidnapped but we didn’t want to give too much of the story away before the film began. So, we looked at alternative words like capture, taken etc. However, we believe ‘Seized’ best fit and wasn’t too obvious; we also believed that it kept the tension more than the others would have done.


Who would be the audience for your media product? How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The original idea of the target audience for our film was to represent it to the 15 and over age range, we believed the range was quite accurate as it isn’t too restricted as to who could would be entitled to watch our film we also wanted to broaden our horizons with the topics we were using and wanted to go into more depth on the issues we were addressing within our title sequence. We have tried to address many emotions in title sequence to foreshadow what may come in the film. We wanted to aim it at the ages we have chosen because we want the audience to be able to relate to the characters and issues in the film so if we had made the age range lower we may have not been able to going into such depth on the issues we involved in our title sequence. The title sequence covers different aspects of social groups included within the age range we have chosen to aim our title sequence at – there are elements of tension and surprise for people seeking adrenaline from the film they are watching, includes lies and deceiving parts to the film for people who want a more emotional film to watch.



What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I took a lot of time researching different media institutions to find out more about them and the types of films they support and distribute. It was time consuming looking for an institution. However, we found one that suited our title sequence and the genre itself. We finally decided upon ‘Lionsgate’ as we looked into the films they had distributed for, these included films such as American Psycho, Saw and Crash. By representing films of the thriller genre, we thought this institution would be best to use for our title sequence. We also believed that the clip of ‘Lionsgate’ that we decided to use, really suited our sequence as it was dark and gloomy which reflects and sets the mood in our title sequence.





How did you attract/address your audience?

We thought we’d try to attract the audience that we were aiming for by trying to focus our title sequence around the habits, likes and dislikes of young adults 15+, I think we achieved our target.  We put a lot of effort into using unique camera shots and techniques such as soundtracks and transitions, which we thought would interest our target audience the most. Also, we based the age of the main character similar to the age group that we have aimed our title sequence at so it would be of more interest to them. We also took into consideration the types of things people of the age group would watch, for example, the twilight series and vampire diaries these films and television dramas include some of the same entertainment elements that may help to interest our age group.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From previous projects such as our continuity piece, we only had experience with iMovie. However, we were advised to use a programme called Final Cut Pro, which would benefit the editing process as it has a more advanced technology system. It was hard to get used to the programme as it was more complex than iMovie and has more confusing tools. But, once we had got used to the programme we were using we proved that we could make our title sequence look much more professional. After getting used to Final Cut Pro we concluded it was better overall as we had more advanced tools to use.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From looking back at our preliminary task I believe we have excelled as a group and have learnt many techniques from using a camera in new ways to using Final Cut Pro.  We have also found that being organised was very important; we were very organised as a group from the beginning of the project, which was beneficial as we had more time to focus on our editing to make the title sequence to the best of our ability.

I think researching around our topic was a good idea as it allowed us to be more prepared and involve our research in our work. I think this can be said for any work, as it helps you focus and get more out of what you are doing. In this particular instance we showed our ability to understand typical codes and conventions and incorporate them in our work.

In conclusion, I think our title sequence was very successful and am very pleased with the final product. Also, I feel I have gained a wider inset into media and filming.

Friday 18 February 2011

Online feedback


This is the screenshot of the feedback that I collected on Facebook. I put a post and link on Facebook to the video on youtube and asked people to give feedback. All the feedback I got off of Facebook was really positive and I'm really happy that people gave positive feedback and like our title sequence.



This is  the screenshot I took of the comments on the actual video on youtube. All the feedback, once again, was quite positive and encouraging however, the one criticism we go was that the production logo disappears too quickly so this persuaded us to change it as we believe that feedback is crucial in the process of making any piece of work.  

Friday 11 February 2011

Overall summary of feedback.

It was important for us to collect feedback from our potential audience so we could improve our title sequence if needed.


We posted our title sequence on Youtube to gather feedback from others. Overall, the feedback we collected was very positive however, there were some criticisms offered. One of the criticisms was that when 'SEIZED' came up, it disappeared too quickly, we took this into consideration and after watching the title sequence back we decided that it may be right to edit this part of the sequence so we lengthened the time that the title was screened.


Another way we collected feedback was to screen our title sequence to a selective few to represent as an audience. We showed it to other classes and gave each student a Audience feedback questionnaire we had created ourselves, the feedback gathered in this particular way was quite varied. One particular answer that kept popping up was about the music and that was was in some ways quite annoying to listen to but after taking this into consideration we realised that the students viewing the sequence were of a younger age than we had anticipated for our film overall, therefore we gathered that they may not have appreciated the title sequence as a whole as much as the people of the age we have aimed our title sequence at. Another issue that we found was that quite a few responses came back that people believed the sequence was a 'horror'.


Finally, as we were happy with or final product, we showed it to our media teachers. Unfortunately, we hadn't researched enough into the way the titles appear and didn't notice that the directors name always appears at the end of the opening credits, after realising this we decided to change this to better our title sequence. It's good that we noticed this mistake before the deadline so we could change it so our title sequence was to the best of our ability and looks more professional overall.

Thursday 10 February 2011

Examples of Feedback already collected.


Here are two examples of the audience responses that we have already collected. We are hoping to collect a lot more of these. But you can see how people respond along the same lines. I think we can be quite proud of some of the responses we are getting back as they are quite positive.

Wednesday 9 February 2011

09.02.11

During today's lesson we mainly added everything to our blogs that is on the tick list and created a questionnaire that would count as our audience feedback. We also put the screen shots of our editing process on our blogs to show the steps of making our project. We started to gather feedback by asking a couple of people to watch our title sequence.

We are all going to post a link to our video on facebook to gather feedback off of friends and family.

Audience feedback.

This is the short questionnaire that we quickly created to give to people after our screening. We would like people to fill out the questionnaire after watching the title sequence - this is our way of collecting audience feedback. 

Final Typography.


This is our final typography the we chose to use for our title sequence. We decided to use this text as it is quite bold. We used a website called Picnik to crete this font. We then chose to download the font so we could use it for all our titles throughout the title sequence. We all agreed to use this text piece as our final one because we thought it represented the character of the stalker and as it is very rough and looks like it's decaying.

Final Music choice.

This is our chosen track we thought it suited the title sequence very well and we also chose this music as it is quite unexpected and isn't overdramatic.


Click to listen:
Chosen Track -In the Beginning

Music Research.

Finding music was a hard task within our title sequence. We had to find a piece that fitted in perfectly and that we all thought was just right! We decided to start looking for music, as our music couldn't be copyrighted we chose to look on audio.lgfl website which had a wide variety of music selections.


Here are some of the music choices we originally considered:
Click to have a listen.
Track One - Cold city.

Track Two - In Memoriam.

Track Three - Hell's Harp.

Monday 7 February 2011

Cast members of our title sequence.

The photos below show the only two people who appeared in our title sequence:

Emily Neil - Emily starred as the girl in our title sequence who was being followed. She is in all the photos in the 'Stalker's journal' and is filmed walking down the street.

Jon Purday - Jon acted as our follower in our title sequence - he is seen towards the beginning and throughout different parts of the sequence however he is mainly silhouetted in the parts that we filmed.

07.02.11

Today we showed our teacher the final cut of our title sequence and she thought it looked quite good. Then I took photos of the cast members and uploaded them - we all added them to our blog and wrote a caption for both the people used in our title sequence. Now we have to finish off everything in the tick list. Also we need to add screen shots of the editing process and our music research and our final song.

Friday 4 February 2011

04.02.11

We made the finishing touches to our title sequence today and made sure the title sequence ran very smoothly. We are really proud of how our title sequence has turned out. From our previous showing, we have adjusted all of the points that were addressed from the audience and made sure every section of our title sequence is perfect.

Wednesday 2 February 2011

02 .02 .11

At the start of today's lesson we all sat around the board and watched different title sequences to keep us on track of how our title sequences should look. Our teacher asked us to have our sequences as near to finished as we could get them so then we could have a presentation at the end of the lesson. So to be able to finish our title sequence our only task for the lesson was to find some music. We found some classical - type music and we thought we should play it alongside our title sequence to see if it suited and it did! It works really well and we really like it - Also  it works so well that we don't have to manipulate the song so it fits. It is quite a fast paced song but suits the pace of our sequence. All we have to do in next lesson is make the final edits like making things fade-in and out and thats about it. After we finish that we are done.
Feedback:
-Fade out our titles as they just disappear.
-Make some final tweeks to tighten it all up.
-Change 'A Sparky Productions' to 'A Sparky Production'.




Friday 28 January 2011

28.01.11

We have nearly finished our title sequence. Our two main priorities now are to find music to fit in with our title sequence, this is proving to be harder than we expected as in the second half of the sequence the pace gets faster as the character is running so we are trying to find music that has a faster bit towards the end. The second target we are hoping to achieve by the end of lesson is to make the titles and put them into our title sequence. We have decided to use the same text for the names as the text we used for our title 'Seized'.
 We are looking to create the effect where all the titles jump and move around in a distressed way. To make this we had to cut the film into tiny chunks and move them slightly. This worked very well and we nearly finished it by the end of our lesson so we are hoping to finish it by the end of next lesson.

Chosen Production logo.


"With each of the previous production logo's we used a white background with black imagery and typography; in this design we used a negative effect to vary our possible options. The typography resembles the different strokes of the feather. In this design we were able to incorporate all the different elements we realised from our first few designs. The contrast of the white on the black creates a softness to the image without losing the sharpness on points of the feather. So far this is the design which we are most likely to use in our opening title sequence as it fits in with the whole look of the sequence."

We chose this for our final production logo as we could easily incorporate this into our title sequence without difficulty as the black background was simple to add in on 'Final Cut pro'. 

Wednesday 26 January 2011

26.01.11

Today we have managed to add much more to our title sequence by including our production logo, the Lionsgate opening sequence and our title. Myself and Daisy had the job of starting to look for the music that we are going to include in our title sequence. However, this we proving harder than we originally thought. We had to make sure that the music wasn't too over-dramatic otherwise it would take the originality away from the genre. We don't want this as it will make our title sequence look and sound really cliched.

Monday 24 January 2011

24.01.11

During today's lesson we have furthered our editing process, and updated our blogs. As a group we have decided some bits were best cut out from our original idea. We hope this will make an overall outcome that is better than the original plan.

Friday 21 January 2011

21.01.11

In today's lesson we were re-starting the editing process to our title sequence as all the editing and cutting of clips that I did the other day. So we started doing it again so we began experimenting with the transitions, cutting clips and moving clips around to find the best order of the clips to go in as we haven't really stuck by our storyboard where we think that the clips look better in a different order. For this lesson we were just trying to get used to 'Final Cut Pro' it didn't really matter where we were putting our clips as it was more of a practice. We also focused on updating our blogs. As Sophie wasn't in, myself and Emily focused on the editing of the title sequence whereas Daisy decided to look at things to use in the making of our production logo.

Production Logo.

This is the very first production logo we created, the feather itself has slightly been softened, and the typography we used follows a movement which mirrors the feathers movement. The typography colour has been faded in a way which adds a softness to it again relating make to the feather image. This is not my favourite production logo because it is very basic and there is no dimension to it or fading of colours or graining of the image. 


This was the second production logo we designed; from the first design we realised the different elements we had to consider to create a production logo which was the opposite to the first one we designed. Firstly we began by strengthening the dimensions of the feather making it more darker adding further depth to it- which we did not achieve in the original design. Also we added graining over the entire logo this give's an essence of the silent movie era. I thought it would be a good idea to use a typography which resembled an earlier period therefore I chose a font which looked like it had been hand written with ink; the typography also has a motion to it which follows the feathers shapes. A criticism of this design was that the heavy graining could have a harsh effect on the eyes. 


By coming to the conclusion that the heavy graining on the image is harsh on the eyes we used a different effect where there is a focal soft point in the middle of the images and the brightness gets darker towards the corners of the production logo.Firstly we began by strengthening the dimensions of the feather making it more darker adding further depth to it- which we did not achieve in the original design- as we did in the previous design.


With each of the previous production logo's we used a white background with black imagery and typography; in this design we used a negative effect to vary our possible options. The typography resembles the different strokes of the feather. In this design we were able to incorporate all the different elements we realised from our first few designs. The contrast of the white on the black creates a softness to the image without losing the sharpness on points of the feather. So far this is the design which we are most likely to use in our opening title sequence as it fits in with the whole look of the sequence.    


This was our next attempt at a production logo, we had the idea to relate the logo to the genre of our film, so we used a dark ash grey to create a dark mysterious mood to begin the title sequence. As in previous designs we chose to use a typography which mirrors the movement of the feather, as for the colour of the font we chose a slightly lighter version of the grey we had used for the feather- first we used the same colour but found that the writing could sometimes be lost in the background; but by using the lighter colour we were able to make the production name stand out against the black background. 


This was our final design for a possible production logo; in previous designs we had used a dark background with lighter imagery. So, in this design we went back to our original design with the lighter background and then chose a varying grey for the feather and writing. We used a soft effect on the image  of the feather as we thought it created a pleasant effect as it had done on the first and third designs. As for the typography, we juxtaposed the previous idea of having the font mirror the movement of the feather and chose a sharper type of typography; although bearing this in mind throughout the different letters there are breakages which could show some of the strokes in the feather. 

Wednesday 19 January 2011

19.01.11

And.... Action!

Today was quite exciting as we filmed the rest of our title sequence. We filmed the main scene - the stalk/chase. It took a lot of thinking through as we had to think about all the continuity if we stopped recording and it took a lot of concentration and planning. We had a couple of run throughs following out the path we were going to film and it went quite smoothly so we had time to get back to the mac room and upload it and we even had enough time to film the last bit of our title sequence in the cupboard where the girl has a bag ripped off her head which went really well, it only took about ten minutes as we had to turn the light on and rip the bag off at the same time. We also had heavy breathing in the pitch black before the light came on which we thought made a great effect to the tension after the street scene. I think all of our filming went really well and considering we've only done it in the space of about three media lessons. I'm really proud of what we've managed to create so far.... Now for the editing.


Preparing to film.

Monday 17 January 2011

17.01.11

Today we decided to do some more filming of the book. We were planning to put these different shots in various places in our title sequence. We thought it would be a good idea to do different angles and shots of the book and slowly panning across it slowly so we can insert the credits onto it when we're in the editing process. As we only had an hour to do this we only had time to upload it to the macs and update our blogs. But I think we are going to leave all the editing once we have finished filming so we know what it looks like all together.

Recently, the weather hasn't been too great so we are hoping the weather is decent on Wednesday because we going trying to stick to our film schedule and don't want it to be raining as we want to film outside the school within our double lesson on wednesday.



Friday 14 January 2011

14.01.11

In today's lesson we all went to the library and made sure our blogs were up to date and looked at the tick list and made sure all of our blog posts were satisfactory. For the second lesson we started to film our desk scene - we needed a male character to fulfill the opening scene for our title sequence so we asked if our teacher would like to do it for us. We tried to make our filming as sucessful as possible and tried to keep to our storyboard. The identity of the character remained unknown so we had the lighting from in front of him focusing on the desk and on the book he was looking at. We filmed from behind him and higher than him and slowly zoomed in so the viewers can see what he is actually looking at. By the end of the lesson we had managed to finish all of our filming and just got it uploaded it before the bell.


Next lesson we plan to film more and if we have time do some more editing.

The Book.

 The Book full of CCTV images.
 Pages of CCTV images.
 Pages of CCTV images.
 Pages of CCTV images.
 Pages of CCTV images.
Pages of CCTV images.

Wednesday 12 January 2011

12.01.11

Unfortunately I missed today's lesson due to a Media and Film trip that I went on, learning about the american and British film industry. It was a very useful experience as i learnt a lot from it and it was a brilliant day.


However, without my the girls in my group printed off our CCTV images and decided to make them look like they had been roughly cut out and stuck in the book for the opening scene of our title sequence, they also added the photos to their blogs which I have caught up with.

Monday 10 January 2011

10.01.11

In today's lesson we updated our blogs, adding whatever we thought we needed, photos, journal etc.
According to our film schedule we were meant to start our filming for our title sequence today but we realised that we didn't have the book we are using as the kidnapper's journal/ scrapbook, so we have had to postpone the start of the filming to Wednesday 12th Jan, which is our next double lesson which should work out better for us as it is a double lesson. However, I personally won't be in that double lesson as I'm attending the media and film trip so i won't be able to partake in the start of the filming but, we have discussed that the girls are only going to film the start of the title sequence which is journal on the desk. This is quite easy to do in school time because we have a choice of classrooms that we can film this bit in.


After school, myself and Daisy stayed behind and took photos of recce, this is photos of the location(s) you are hoping to film in. So, myself and Daisy took photos of the classrooms we are considering to film our opening of our title sequence in. Then, we left the school and photographed the street and garages that are shown in our storyboard. All these photos will be shown on all of our blogs over the next few days.

Photos of the settings we are planning to use.



These photos are ones we have just taken of the locations that we are considering using within our title sequence. Also, we have photographed other possible locations that we could use if others aren't available at the time we plan to film. 

Location for desk scene:




The following images are where we have planned to shoot our filming for the stalking scene.

Location for stalking scene:



Finally, these images are where the stalking scene comes to a height of tension and action and where there is a struggle between the man and girl then the camera will fall to a tilt.

Location for struggle scene:





Friday 7 January 2011

More Surveillance photos.

These are some more images that we decided to take in today's second period.However, we don't think these photos are as good as the ones taken on Wednesday - we were resricted with the space we had to use as it was raining heavily when we went to take the photos so we only had within the school buildings to shoot. So, for these reasons we don't think as a group the photos are as successful as they could have been.



Seized animatic.

07.01.11

In today's lesson we had an introduction lesson to our new teacher, Mr Purday. So we all explained our plans for our title sequences and what we have put in action so far to start the process of making them, we then started to make a list of what we need to do next so we have all the planning evidence finalised before we start filming. For the second lesson, as a group, we decided it would probably be best to take some more photos as it would be more beneficial if we had a variety of photos to choose from when it comes to adding it in to our 'kidnapper's journal'. After taking the photos we came back to the mac suite and edited to make them look like the surveillance footage, changing the colour, putting the date & time on them and adjusting them. To finish off the lesson we added them onto our blog.

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Surveillance Images.

These are all of our images that we have taken and edited. We have tried our best to create CCTV looking cameras and I think our final product for our photos to go in the journal look quite good. Emily and Daisy took on the role of editing and looiked at some real surveillance photos and tried to make them look alike. I am really happy with how they have turned out.








Chosen Images.

 




 







Here are all our chosen images - we went through and selected the images that we thought were best out of the ones we had taken and now we are going on to edit them all.