Inspirational for our film

First cut

This is our first cut of 'Escapism". Initially, our production was going well because on our first shoot we managed to get a lot of filming done. Most of the shots looked good and they came together well however when we edited it afterwards we realised that is wasn't up to the standard that we were looking for. Some of the shots were a bit too shaky and we realised that there are shots that need to be put in to add to it and make it better. We didn't make the most out of the tripod and we didn't know enough about the camera setting etc prior to timing. Some of the props were hard to get hold of and the make up was difficult to do and have come to the conclusion that we will need to re-film. We have struggled to find an appropriate time to refill it as our actors are struggling for availability although we will do it in the near future. We are going to use the tripod and use the camera to the best of our ability.

Task 19: Sound

Sound



The following track is something we feel is suitable for our film and it is quite slow. It fits well with the nature of the abuse and will give the audience an idea of what is happening. It is also not too quick or upbeat and will be played when the father is walking up the stairs and abuses the son.

bensound-tomorrow.mp3

Another possibility is this track called 'Better Days'. We have considered this because we feel it really reflects the mood of the opening sequence and it is very slow and mellow which is perfect. It is similar to 'Tomorrow" but has subtle differences.

bensound-betterdays.mp3

The track below is for the latter stages of our opening sequence when Mckenzie finds the letter from his mother. The track represents hope which is perfect for what we want and is contrasting to the rest of the production. It is faster and more upbeat which makes it a happier song.

bensound-anewbeginning.mp3

• We are thinking about having the tense music building up when he is the bedroom and abusing the son. Then, when he walks out the room and closes the door the music cuts. 

Our actors are going to be making the sound effects as we think this will be more realistic and powerful. In films I have researched poor sound effects have a massive impact on the tenseness of the film and the dramatic effect it effects. They often sound too fake so we have decided to use real ones as our actors are experienced.

Learning comment
From research I have found that soundtrack is very important in opening sequences as it sets the tone of the film and needs to represent the mood of the film. For the soundtrack we have chosen to use a sorrowful and sad track to reflect the mood of the film as it is quite depressing. A happy and upbeat sound wouldn't be appropriate because our opening is quite depressing so we decided to use a more mellow sound.

Task 18: Typography

After using the font 'bad coma' we realised it wasn't an appropriate font as it looked too apocalyptic. We have decided to use the font called 'Courier New Bold' as it looks more relatable and realistic. It is simple and down to earth, as our film is a small production, so we didn't want something that was too excessive. The other ones look to  apocalyptic for our genre and wouldn't look right.

Learning comment
I have learnt that the font of the titles is key in reflecting the mood of the film and it needs to suit the style and genre, otherwise it looks out of place. If films have typography that isn't appropriate for their film, it often distracts the audience and would take their attention away from the content.

Task 16: Character Profiles

Character Profile

Name: Keith Tate
Age: 36
General physical description: 6'0ft Ginger haired male with short ginger beard and moustache. Stocky build.
Hometown: Thornbury.
Type of home/ neighbourhood: Council estate.
Relationship status: Single.
Current family: One child.
Family background: Divorced parents. Separated with partner who is mother of his child. She is dead.
Other close relationships: Keith has close finds who he goes drinking with regularly. They are all drunks.
Job: Currently unemployed because of his disorderly behaviour and alcohol abuse. Often turns to         crime to make money.
Dress style: Very simple unbranded clothing which is often worn out and dirty. Can't afford new clothing and struggles to wash clothes.
Attitude to religion: Atheist and doesn't think God is real.
Favourite pastime: Drugs and alcohol to forget and numb the pain.
Consideration for others: Doesn't care about his family and treats them badly. Isn't bothered and doesn't realise how his drinking and drug taking affects people around him. He is selfish and ignorant and only think about himself.
How other people see him: Other people have little respect for him however feel too threatened and scared to stand up to him. They want to help him but he doesn't want to change and they are scared how he will react if they offer him help.
Other traits: He is very stubborn and arrogant and isn't willing to change for others which is shown later in the film. He is malicious and short tempered which causes him to lash out at people.
Readers will dislike this character because he is abusive.

Name: McKenzie Tate
Age:16
General physical description: Small and skinny boy with curly brown hair. 5'6 ft. and comes cross very vulnerable and submissive.
Hometown: Thornbury.
Type of home neighbourhood: Council estate.
Relationship status: Single.
Current family: Mother has died leaving just his father and himself. No other siblings.
Family background: Father is abusive and mother is dead. He had a close relationship with his mother and now feels isolated as she is not alive. His father doesn't respect for him and he feels threatened when he is around him. Life is hard as his dad spends all their money on drink and drugs He isn't close with uncles, aunties and cousins and feel ostracised from them because of his family situation.
Other close relationships: McKenzie has a very close female friend who he expresses his feelings to. She's the only person who listens to him problems and when he is around her is the only time he feels safe and free.
Job: Works at local grocery store in order to support himself. His dad doesn't agree with his son working because he's a control freak towards his son.
Dress style: Typical teenage clothes, plain, simple and casual.

Task 17: Props, Location and Fashion Planning - Risk Assessment

• The above image is myself asking our actors if they could provide jeans as we think that this is suitable clothing them to wear to represent the characters and their backgrounds. All the actors in our production have consented to being featured and filmed and all agreed that jeans were a good choice of clothing for their characters part. We will only need to think about clothing for the legs as we are only going to reveal the bottom half of the actors, although for the character called McKenzie we will show his whole body so we have asked our actor to wear suitable clothes for our representation.

• We are going to use alternative cigarettes instead of real tobacco cigarettes and all alcohol will be purchased by a consulting adult and will be consumed before we use the leftover bottles and cans as props.

• We have asked a woman to do the make up for our actors as this is a really important for our production and we wanted someone who has expertise in the area to do it. The make up artist will be making the bruises for our actors.

The above image is me confirming with my mother that she can supply us with empty cans and bottles as props.

It was important that we had a risk assessment before filming our film to prevent any possible injuries and difficulties. Potential hazards included fires caused by cigarettes, injuries sustained from falling downstairs and hands being cut on glass. To prevent these from happening we agreed to put out any cigarettes as soon as we used them and wore gloves when handling glass. During the production there were no injuries sustained and our studio was left how we found it.

This is where some of the filming will take place. We chose this location as had the perfect physical features we wanted, including a hallway, a bookcase and a door to a bedroom. It also has low key lighting which fitted the mood we wanted to create, as the narrative of our film is dark and mysterious. We wanted a hallway so that we could film some match on action and we felt this location was appropriate as 

Task 15: Storyboarding and Shot lists

Above is the shot lists. We have used a variety of shot angles and frames to show certain things. For example we have used a low angle shot to show the power the father possesses and close ups of McKenzie's face to show his facial expressions and express how shaken up and distraught he is. From research I have learnt that a range of shots is important to avoid it being boring and to show mood and power/vulnerability.

Below are our first drafts of the storyboards. This is not finalised yet and we have still got improvement to make however we are happy with most of it so far. They show what happens in each part.

Task 14: Draft & Final Script

Escapism script from Tom Constable

Here is the script for our opening sequence. We do not have a lot of dialogue in our script as we feel this wouldn't suit the dark mood of the sequence and will disrupt the mellow tone. Too much speech would also make it too long and wouldn't create the effect we were looking for. I have learnt how to write a script and how to include stage directions.

Task 13: Audience Profile

Audience profile from Tom Constable

Task 12: Thinking of a concept/Final idea

Final concept from Tom Constable

Task 10: Analyse previous students work

Learning comments

From analysing previous students work i have learnt that I need to use a wide range of camera shots and angles, make sure the narrative is hinted at but not given away, and use the appropriate sound to reflect the mood etc. I think that this is very important because it avoids making the opening sequence morning, repetitive and not suited to the genre. My opening sequence needs to be a suited to a coming of age film and appropriate for an audience of mainly teenagers. I also need to use titles that are suited to the audience and not make it too long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMa_9edjbG4

Task 9: Representation in films

Ferris Bueller's Day off from Tom Constable

The breakfast club from Tom Constable


Learning comments

What i have learnt is that it is very important to represent social groups in the opening sequence if films and that it can be done using many different techniques such as camera angles, props, speech, actions and music and sound. This is something that I am going to have to make sure i include in my opening sequence to represent different social groups.

Pirates of the caribbean from Adam Tanner

Credit to Adam Tanner for this slideshare.

Creative Task: Create a continuity sequence of at least 20 different shots

Learning comments

I have learnt that it is very important to have a lot of shots and a variety of shots so that it creates pace  an it flows. I found it hard to keep the shots short but when we did it had a great effect because it was quick and looked good. The editing process was hard because there were a lot of clips and we had to make sure they weren't too long but they were seamless at the same time. The sequence worked and we managed to get a variety of shots.

Here is the story board that we used to plan our creative task.

Creative Task: Create a title credit sequence for a coming of age 80's film.

Credit to Alex Hall and Tom Cornock for this opening title sequence.


Learning comments

I think that titles are very important in a film. Not only do they tell us who produced a film and starred in it, the font and style of them tell us what the film is going to be like and the font often suits the genre. They are the first thing that the audience sees in the film so it is important that they look good and create an impression. We found it hard to recreate at the titles of a film because we needed to make them be in the right place in the correct font and be in order. We found this hard to do and some of them come in with an effect on it.

Task 8: Narrative Structure

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Skyfall

Task 7: Title Research

Juno title research from Tom Constable

Ferris buellar's day off title research from Tom Constable

The breakfast club title research from Tom Constable

Task 6: Audience Research

Task 6 from Tom Constable

Learning comments

I have learnt that producers try and make the film appeal to a certain audiences by the use of clothes, characters, props, colours, music. For example if the audience is mainly teenage boys, the protagonist will be male and will wear manly clothes in manly colours. It's important that the audience is represented in the film so that it appeals tot hem and they know that they will like it.

Creative Task: Remake the opening of a coming of age film

Learning comments

Although we were just copying an opening sequence, it was hard to remake it because we had to get all the details down to perfection. We had some difficulty fully remaking it as we didn't have some of the props as facilities we needed to make it identical. I thought we used what we had very well and we used the music exactly like they did in the real thing. There were definitely things that we could improve on for example in one of the clips Adam is seen in the background when he shouldn't be there. Also, when we are speaking in the car, it is hard to hear our voices because of the music in the background and the wind is very loud. If we could get rid of little mistakes like that it would improve the outcome of the video. Overall I think we did pretty well and we were happy with what we did.

Task 4: Producers and Distributers

Learning Comments

I am surprised how many film production companies make coming of age films as they are directed at quite a small audience. The cost of film production is a large amount but i am not really surprised because I knew that already, plus much more money is made than the cost of production. There are a lot of production companies however I am now surprised because there is a lot of money to be made.

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Task 5: Director Case Study

Learning comments

We could use the style of Breaking the fourth in our opening sequence as this can be used to great effect because it engages the audience, which is key. It turns the film into a sort of diary and gives the audience a lot of information about the characters feeling and emotions. We could use Hughes' style of film about teenagers finding their maturity as these films are often successful.

http://prezi.com/hlphsroo1isv/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Task 11: Preliminary Task

Learning comment 

We found this task difficult to complete as we had to combine all the skills we have learnt such as match on action and shot reverse who. Although we made a few errors we executed the short film well and we used a range of shots. The match on action was seamless however the shot reverse shot ended up being too quick as we didn't leave enough room between cuts making it look unnatural.

Task 3: Conventions of an Opening Sequence

Task 3 from Tom Constable

Juno ‘reverse’ storyboard from Adam Tanner

Credit to Adam Tanner for this Juno reverse storyboard.

Creative task 2: Match on Action

Learning comments:

Using the match on action technique was difficult because you we had to make it look like it was one whole continuous shot. There were many things that needed to be considered such as making sure you were walking on the same line throughout so that when it changed to the next clip you weren't far away from where you were previously. Editing was also challenging because timing was crucial and it is important to make it look seamless. For example when walking through doors we had to edit it so we changed camera angle at the exact right moment and when walking around corners we needed to make it look like he was continuously walking. . If we did it too early or late it wouldn't be effective. There were things we could improve on for example when we showed the shoe laces being tied up, the person walking as several metres further up the path on the next shot. If the person had started walking before, it would have looked better. Also some of the shot were a bit too long which looks a bit tedious for the audience. In one of the shots a woman could be seen walking her dog however in the next shot she is not there. This is something to improve on.

Creative Task 1: Shot Reverse Shot

Learning comments

This piece of work was very challenging because of the amount of accuracy needed when filming and editing. When filming, it is essential that you use the right techniques and don't break the 180 degree rule which is difficult. This rule is very important so that you don't confuse the audience and if you make one small mistake it can make a huge impact on the final product. Filming the shot reverse shot was also difficult because you had to film it all twice but from different angles and also had to judge how far away to stand. You need to remember to stand in the same spots, make sure the lighting is the same and wear the same clothes so that it looks like the two people are talking to each other in a full conversation instead of it being in two separate filming's. This makes it very challenging to film.
The editing is also hard to do. Because the final video is made up of two separate videos, when editing you have to make sure you crop out very other sentence so words aren't repeated and which is difficult because there is often overlapping. The editing process is also hard because there are a lot of clips and you need to edit them to get the part you want.
If we were to do it again we would show down when taking so that there isn't overlapping and it is easier to edit. We would also film closer to the person for the shot/reverse shot to get a better effect.

This is the story board that we used to plan the video. It says what each person says and where they stand etc.

Task 2: History of Coming of Age films

http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/coming-of-age-films-499e2e39-c14b-4f87-a638-359b595aa343


Learning comment

I have learnt that the best films have the best opening sequences. These opening sequences are good because they use a range of camera shots, use lighting and sound to express feeling and set the scene, and draw audiences in by being either action packed or relatable to the audience. Opening sequences are important in films to catch the attention of the audience and set the scene of the film.

Task 1: Famous Opening Sequences

This is the opening scene of 'American Pie'.

The production company etc are shown on screen at the start, this is found in every opening sequence.
The dialogue is quite a messy and informal font, like it has been hand written. This makes us think that the film is going to be quite funny and laid back and that the target audience is young people.
From the opening scene we don't get much of an idea about the narrative of the film however it is obvious that it is a comedy. We are introduced to the main character. This is very important because these are our first impressions of him
The music isn't dramatic but is funky and relaxed which allows the audience to relax and enjoy the film. The music is not serious.


This is the opening sequence of 'Skyfall'.

This is a very action packed and energetic opening scene. We don't see an text on screen but we do see a lot of violence, which shows the film is aimed at adult and teenagers, not children.
The soundtrack is used to great effect. It is quite sharp and quick, loud music which makes it dramatic and grabs the audiences attention. It uses the trademark James Bond music which everyone associates with the James Bond films. The music insinuates that the film is going to be action packed and will keep the audience on the edge of their seats.
I like the quick start to the film as it really sets the tone for the rest of the film and suggests that it's going to be a quick pace. The opening sequence gives away quite a lot of the narrative compared to others, as we see which character is the secret agent and which character is the enemy as well as what they are fighting for.


This is the opening sequence of Jaws.

In this opening sequence we see Chrissie getting eaten by a shark. The music in this scene is very clever as it slowly builds up to the climax. It stars off slow and quiet but soon get faster and louder. The music creates a big dramatic effect and gets viewers on the edge of their seats. The camera angle is also used effectively, with some of the filming under the water in the point of view of the Shark.
There is no text in this opening sequence.This first two minutes of the film really sets the scene that the film is going to be very gory and scary and it looks as though the film is aimed at young people as in teenagers because of the gore.
I like this opening because its very dramatic and action packed and grabs all of your attention.


This is the opening sequence of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

In this scene Ferris talks to his parents and manages to get the day off school. Although there isn't loads of action it sets the scene of the film. Not too much is given away about the narrative of the film   and it is kept open to interpretation and to make the audience want to watch more. The dialogue shows the name of actors and production company. The font of the text is quite cartoony which shows the target audience are young and that the film isn't a serious film. The font suggests that it is going to be a quite light hearted film and funny rather than scary.




This is the opening sequence of 'Breakfast Club'.

The scene starts with a voice over of a man reading a letter he has wrote. This voiceover technique is an effective way to explain what's happening instead of text on the screen or just someone reading something out. It gives information.There is also chilled music in the background which is laid back instead of dramatic, implying the film isn't a horror and is going to be easy to watch. From the opening scene there are elements of the narrative revealed, as pupils gather at the school, and the voice over tells us why they are there although not too much is given away.It's also obvious that it's a comedy coming of age film as there are elements of humour shown.



This is the opening sequence of 'Juno'

This opening sequence is clever because it combines real life footage with cartoon drawing animations. This is a simple concept but is very effective and indicates that the production company might not have a big budget to do something more complex. The music is quite country and sets the tone of what the film is going be like, where it is set and the characters involved.
There is text coming up on the screen with the production company, producers and actors etc. The text is very cartoony which suggests it is for a young audience and is a light hearted film. Extremely little is given away about the narrative of the film as there is no dialogue and not much action happens.




Learning comments

What i have learnt about great opening scenes is that they all use different conventions to set the scene of the play. Music, dialogue and other techniques are used to show what the film is going to be like and make a great start to the film. Music can be used to add tension and dramatic effect in thrillers or make the audience relax and start to enjoy the film if it's a comedy or coming of age film. The text shows the target audience of the film and what it's going to be like and the actions of characters hints at the narrative of the film and what to expect.  The amount of narrative shown in opening sequences varies a lot however it is usually not a lot because the audience doesn't know the characters that early in the film. Opening sequences can be a really important part of a film and play a big role in it being successful.