AS Movie Opening - The Diversion

Evaluation Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

With our main task which was to create a opening title sequence there were many processes we had to go throughin order to complete our media piece. The first process was to research examples of opening title sequences, the opening title sequences I researched into were City of God which is set in an urban area of Brazil, there are lots of favelas and slums featured in the extract which symbolises a poor community in which the characters live in. Also I researched into Dexter, Six Feet Under and Cold Mountain, They are all good examples as they all have many different aspects to a start of a film.


The next process was to start our storyboard planning, where we decided what our opening title sequence would be and how many of us would be in a group. We completed storyboards and took images of possible locations for our opening film scene.


The next process was to create target audience questionnaires to help decide what our media project would contain, and also created a profile of a typical target audience member. The next stage was construction in which we took images of the set for our media project and described the problems we faced such as lighting issues. 


The final process was the evaluation questions which we answered to conclude our media project and describe what we did and how we did it using a variety of technologies. Comparing this to our preliminary task we completed very little planning, only a storyboard. Then we carried out the filming straight after that without any research, construction or evaluation. This was improved on our main task as we knew what to do to make it better, such as how to operate the camera professionally and to carry out research into other opening title sequences.


For the planning a storyboard had been created for the preliminary task and also location was chosen and script also chosen, whereas in our main task we followed these steps in alot more detail for example, I created a storyboard on the computer using 'Pivot' as well as a hand-drawn one.


For the construction of the preliminary task, capture and editing was simply done with no music editing, whereas we carried out the filming of our media project in much more detail and editing was much complicated as extracts had to be cut and changed to our liking.


For the Evaluation stage little formal evaluation had been done for the preliminary task whereas in the main task questions were completed and answered that described the processes we carried out throughout the stages of development.

Evaluation Question 6 - What have you learn about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt a lot from using different types of technology from the process of constructing our media project, here is a list of the technology used by our media group; 


During the research stage of our media project we used a user generated 2.0 website called Youtube to research into other examples of opening film sequences. We looked at the opening title sequences from "Dexter" and "Six Feet Under".


Here is an image of a Apple IMac which I used regularly to create and edit the stages of development of our Media Product.




I have used a variety of editing software such as Adobe Photoshop to create titles for our opening film sequence. Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program that is very useful, we can use it to create titles and other things needed in our media project

To create our media project we used Adobe Premiere Pro, Premiere Pro is editing software that allows you to edit video footage to a professional standard. We used Adobe Premiere throughout the stages of development and at first we found it hard to use and understand, but gradually we learnt how to use the software and edit our opening film sequence to the best of our ability. We used Adobe Premiere Pro to put our opening film sequence together by trimming the length of the footage we shot and also added music.

This is the device we used to film our opening title sequence, it is a Panasonic NVGS 500 mini-DV video camera and was very easy to use and operate. We also used a tripod to make the camera more steady, ensuring the picture was not blurry.


We also used Blogger to record all of our reserach, planning, construction and evaluation stages.




In Conclusion all of this technology was very important to aid construction and finish our Media project. Without such technology we would not of been able to film our project, and report back to blogger on our planning, construction research and evaluation.

Evaluation Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

This is a copy of our target audience questionnaire, we asked questions that were relative to our film. This is so we can obtain an understanding of our audiences view on any of the subjects featured in our questionnaire.

Circle Which Apply

• What Gender Are You?

      Male                         Female

• What Age Category Do You Fit Into?

      10-15    16-21    22-30    31-40    41-50    51-60    61+

• What Film Genres Do You Prefer?

Action   Sci-Fi   Horror   Comedy   Adventure   Romance   Drama   Musical   War

• Are Titles Important In An Opening Scene? On a scale of 1-10.

No                                                                  Yes

1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9      10

Answer The Following

• Is Music Important In An Opening Film Scene? Why?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

• What Style Of Music Would You Expect To Hear In An Opening Scene Of An Action Film? And at what pace?

………………………………………………………………………………………………........................................................................................................................................................................................

Questionnaire Results

We made use of the resources around us, who were essentially our peer group so it is no surprise that our questionnaire responses were almost entirely in the 16-21 age category, which is helpful because this is our target audience.

The average importance rating of 'Titles' in an opening film scene was 7.1/10, according to our target audience.

We gained a variety of responses when asking the question 'Is music important in an opening scene?' The majority of the answers were along the lines of 'Yes, because it creates the atmosphere of the scene' or that 'It helps build tension for the audience'. We took this answer into consideration when creating our film opening and used three different soundtracks in our opening scene. The first was one that created a soft but mysterious atmosphere in the scene, followed by a fast heavy soundtrack which helps to build the tension in the scene. We then finished with a quiet eerie soundtrack which also creates tension and an uneasy atmosphere. 

When asking the question ' What style and pace of music would you expect to hear in an opening scene of an action film?' The majority of the answers were along the lines of ' Fast paced, modern music which helps generate audience excitement.

Evaluation Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

There are many ways that the audience for a film can be decided. But first in order to receive the desired classification it must pass tests by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). The BBFC is responsible for awarding classifications to all licensed media products for example; films, dvds and games released in the UK. This is done by checking the film against guidelines which are drawnup every few years by and decided upon by the general public, this is because society is different now to a couple of years ago and people can adjust to the ways that media products display key issues. As well as this the BBFC must stick to Acts of Parliament such as the 1984 Recordings Act, this law gave the BBFC the responsibility to classify all media released in the UK to prevent children and the vulnerable from seeing inappropriate content such as:

· Criminal behaviour

· Illegal drugs

· Violent behaviour or incidents

· Horrific behaviour or incidents

· Human sexual activity

This is a picture of our typical target audience member:

His name is Julian, he is 16, and enjoys intelligently created films, such as 'Sherlock Holmes'. He also enjoys comedy-action films, for example 'Hot Fuzz'. He makes regular visits to the cinema to see films that he knows he will enjoy. He also enjoys theater and performing arts.

We read through the BBFC guidelines and we were happy that our film fitted into the '12A' category, this means that it is suitable for people of age 12 or over. One of the guidelines for a '12A' is that 'moderate violence is allowed but should not dwell on detail'. We did not have any violence in our opening scene, but a car chase was involved, and if we were to continue our opening scene it would be likely that it would contain some moderately violent scenes.

 

Evaluation Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

There are two main ways of distributing media products:


This can be done by screenings in cinemas, DVD and television. These are all undergone by the larger companies that distribute films such as Fox or Warner Bros.

The other way that a media product can be distributed is via web 2.0 on sites such as http://www.youtube.com/.

This site contains "user-generated content" making it web 2.0. Obviously it would be difficult to get a major organistation to distribute our media product, however it may not be impossible. This is becuase there are many different things that these organisations will have to put at stake for the product, such as its reputation as a quality distributer, or ther amount of cash that they would invest in the product. This means that there is less chance for amatures work to be distributed in this way. This is also why it would be more likely that our media product would be better distributed on http://www.youtube.com/. On youtube it is possibloe for anyone to upload their own media products, provided they have an account, also it is free to do so however there is no chance of making money back for your product, unless it is bought from you. Youtube is filled with videos of various length and genre, mainly made by amaeurs. For example, 'Where the Hell is Matt?'

Evaluation Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents young males as a social group. In the opening scene, the characters are seen as risk-taking, challenged and endangered idividuals. The characters seen are stereotypes of todays youth, they are agressive and violent. The scene starts with a young male walking along a road alone. This suggests that he is isolated and that he possbly feels rejected from his social group. As the scene progresses we see this character being chased by somebody in a vehicle. This sugests to the audience that they are stereotypical youths, and that they have conflict between them. Later in the scene we see an older male, asleep in a chair. This suggests that he is not suitable to perform the actions that these youths are performng.

Evaluation Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our product is similar to many of the conventions used in other professional media products, for example the titling. In the opening scene of 'Six Feet Under' the titles used are very simple but well positioned.


In our opening scene we decided that we would use the titles necessary to introduce our film, but not go over the top, and attempt to make them fit in with the environment of the scene, this way the titles would not detract from our piece, much like in 'Six Feet Under'













This shot help introduce the character to the audience, it suggests to the audience that 'Ash' (The character featuring in this shot) is a mysterious individual, due to the unusual cloud formation behind him. It also suggests that he is isolated and has nobody to turn to, since he is on his own walking down a road in a desolate area.


In our opening scene it is not entirely clear of who is the 'Protagonist' or 'Antagonist'. In our opening scene we firstly see an establishing shot of a character walking along a road. At this point we are unsure of who he is and whether he is the 'Good Guy' or the 'Bad Guy' of the film.  As the scene progresses it becomes apparent that the character is being chased, at this point we still do not know whether he is being chased by the 'Bad Guys' or the 'Good Guys' Later in the scene when we see 'Aaron' for the first time it then becomes a bit more obvious that 'Aaron' is the Antagonist, as he is wearing a chain, and is also a sleeveless top.

Construction

Filming Problems and Solutions: When we began filming, we encountered our first major problem which was lighting. When we arrived home from school, it was already becoming dark. This restricted our filming to just the weekends if we had the time. However one afternoon we gained permission to leave school early in order to film the scene.

Here is a picture of when we first started filming after school. When filming in this light it was near impossible to make out who the figure was or what he was doing. The time was around 4:30pm when we took this picture.

Location Stills: The film was shot at Ashes house and along the road next to it. This was chosen because of the it is an isolated area, making it easier to film and giving the atmosphere we desired. At first we wanted the house to look abandoned by boarding up the windows, so that it would seem mysterious. However we decided against this as it would be difficult to do, and also we don't actually see much of the house in the scene.

These are some photo-stills of the locations we are going to use.

Edit Issues and Solutions: When we transferred our opening scene onto the main edit station we found that two of the video files had not transferred correctly, and had a slight glitch in them when played back. We solved this problem by copying the original files onto a usb, and transferring them that way.

Music Issues: When trying to find a suitable music track for our media piece we used a website called 'www.freeplaymusic.com' this website is a 'copyright free' music website, where users can download music. The first piece of music we chose for our piece was called 'Valley Of Mist'.

This is a slow, mysterious piece of music. We used this music for the first 30 seconds of our opening scene. We then used a cross-fade into a much faster and heavier piece of music called 'Limp Trusket'.

The problem arose when we were unable to find a suitable track for the last 30 seconds of our piece, after finding a track that we thought was suitable for the last scene, we realised that it didn't really climax at the place where we wanted to end. So we decided to leave the scene at a point that doesnt reveal to much of the storyline. The final track was called 'Dark Angel'.

Titling Issues: When trying to create titles, we found that anything we created that was colourful or artistic didn't really suit the feel of our opening scene. So we went for something a bit more simple.

These are some previews of the titles we created:

This is he first title we produced for our film, however we felt it didn't really look right when we edited it into the opening scene. So we went for a style that matched the rest of our titles.

 

Apart from the 'Andale Production' title, these titles will be layered over the footage, we have positioned them in appropriate positions.

When we layered this title over the footage we had limited space to fit the title

in, so unfortunately it is very close to the edge of the screen, and not in our 'safe margin'.

For our final title we created a typewriter effect for it by using 'Adobe After Effects CS4', which we then combined with a sound effect that we found on a CD. 

Here is a preview of our final title, which will feature at the end of our 2 minute opening scene.

Timing Issues: We were very pleased with the timing of the opening scene. As when we put the piece together, it came to just over 2 minutes long. Therefore no cuts had to be made, and we did not have to include any unnecessary cutaway or titling.

Weather/Illness Problems and Solutions: The weather was a serious issue when we wanted to film. There was a severe amount of snow that came half way through filming, so unless we started again we could not continue filming until it had gone. This delayed our film from being made for quite some time.

This is a picture of the location before the snow came.


This is a picture of the location when the snow had hit.

Questionnaire

This is a copy of our target audience questionnaire, we asked questions that were relative to our film. This is so we can obtain an understanding of our audiences view on any of the subjects featured in our questionnaire.

Circle Which Apply

• What Gender Are You?

      Male                         Female

• What Age Category Do You Fit Into?

      10-15    16-21    22-30    31-40    41-50    51-60    61+

• What Film Genres Do You Prefer?

Action   Sci-Fi   Horror   Comedy   Adventure   Romance   Drama   Musical   War

• Are Titles Important In An Opening Scene? On a scale of 1-10.

No                                                                  Yes

1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9      10

Answer The Following

• Is Music Important In An Opening Film Scene? Why?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

• What Style Of Music Would You Expect To Hear In An Opening Scene Of An Action Film? And at what pace?

………………………………………………………………………………………………........................................................................................................................................................................................

Questionnaire Results

We made use of the resources around us, who were essentially our peer group so it is no surprise that our questionnaire responses were almost entirely in the 16-21 age category, which is helpful because this is our target audience.

The average importance rating of 'Titles' in an opening film scene was 7.1/10, according to our target audience.

We gained a variety of responses when asking the question 'Is music important in an opening scene?' The majority of the answers were along the lines of 'Yes, because it creates the atmosphere of the scene' or that 'It helps build tension for the audience'.

When asking the question ' What style and pace of music would you expect to hear in an opening scene of an action film?' The majority of the answers were along the lines of ' Fast paced, modern music which helps generate audience excitement.

Our Typical Target Audience Member

This is a picture of our target audience member:

His name is Julian, he is 16, and enjoys intelligently created films, such as 'Sherlock Holmes'. He also enjoys comedy-action films, for example 'Hot Fuzz'. He makes regular visits to the cinema to see films that he knows he will enjoy. He also enjoys theatre and performing arts.