Parellel Final Draft
This is our final draft of our film opening Parallel. We have made quite a few adjustments from our first draft. We have improved the titles greatly, giving them animations, movement and changing the names to make them more interesting to look at. We have added a backing track to make the opening and the walking scene less boring, whilst trying to add some dramatic effect, making the opening scene more engaging. We have cut out a lot of clips in the walking section so it doesn't drag on like it did in the first draft. We have sorted out the sound issues that we encountered on our first draft by increasing the audio gain on the dialogue.
Possible Music Choices
These are some of the music choices that we have researched. After looking back at our music research of similar films we found a few pieces of music that we felt were effective and could work in our opening sequence:
Here are our main options:
This is called 'Arrival of the Birds'. I feel as thought this is a nice calm piece of music that will fit in well with the nice opening shots that we have. It is similar to the type of music that Forest Gump uses, which is a film we put a lot of research into as it is similar to our opening sequence. The only negative to this is a don't think it would fit well with our genre which is dark comedy. This music sounds like something you'd more likely find in a family drama.
This is called 'To Build a Home'. This piece of music is quite engaging as it comes out in little spurts which I think would work well in the beginning of as it could match our opening shots quite well. Although like the previous composition I don't think this piece of music matches our genre quite well as it is too sad. Also I'm positive I've heard this in an advert somewhere which means that it could be too recognisable.
This is called 'Requiem for a Dream'. I like the disturbing sound it has to the beginning of it as that fits into our genre of our film being dark. Although the song is well too well know for us to consider using in our opening sequence.
This is called 'Dance Little Liar' I believe this would fit our genre quite well as it does have a slightly disturbing sound to it but it can also be left open to comedy as it breaks into a steady beat. It is also a good track to sync transitions to it as it does have some heavy beats which would be effective for transitions.
In the end we choose 'Dance Little Lair' for our opening sequence as we felt it matched our genre very well and it isn't very well known which makes it original to us.
Here are our main options:
This is called 'Arrival of the Birds'. I feel as thought this is a nice calm piece of music that will fit in well with the nice opening shots that we have. It is similar to the type of music that Forest Gump uses, which is a film we put a lot of research into as it is similar to our opening sequence. The only negative to this is a don't think it would fit well with our genre which is dark comedy. This music sounds like something you'd more likely find in a family drama.
This is called 'To Build a Home'. This piece of music is quite engaging as it comes out in little spurts which I think would work well in the beginning of as it could match our opening shots quite well. Although like the previous composition I don't think this piece of music matches our genre quite well as it is too sad. Also I'm positive I've heard this in an advert somewhere which means that it could be too recognisable.
This is called 'Requiem for a Dream'. I like the disturbing sound it has to the beginning of it as that fits into our genre of our film being dark. Although the song is well too well know for us to consider using in our opening sequence.
This is called 'Dance Little Liar' I believe this would fit our genre quite well as it does have a slightly disturbing sound to it but it can also be left open to comedy as it breaks into a steady beat. It is also a good track to sync transitions to it as it does have some heavy beats which would be effective for transitions.
In the end we choose 'Dance Little Lair' for our opening sequence as we felt it matched our genre very well and it isn't very well known which makes it original to us.
Feedback from First Draft
By looking at our first draft we already had a rough idea of what desperately needed improving, but it is important to get other peoples opinions to make sure we hadn't missed anything, and to back up what we already thought was wrong.
We got more positive points than we expected as I think many people were impressed by the cloning edit that made 2 of the same character appear on the screen. But there were some improvement that were highlighted for example: including music, cutting out wobbles, sorting out the sound issues. originally we were not planning on using music because we did some research on the movie 'The Double' and noticed that this film didn't include any music at all which made all the comedic moments stand out. But after receiving the feedback it was evident that we needed to include music as most of the feedback said it would be a good idea to do so.
Below are some pictures of the feedback we received:
The cloning effect seemed to be popular with the feedback as we got some comments such as 'Cloning is flawless' and 'Good use of cloning' which was nice to hear because that took a lot of time to get right. They believe the acting by Max was convincing. Most of our criticism was lack of music and shaky shots which made sense but overall we thought the feedback was very positive and useful for us.
After the feedback we decided the main things we needed to improve on were:
- Title order, size and font
- Cut out wobbly shots
- Find different sound effects/music and cut out bird sound.
- Remove the title at the end of the sequence.
- Make it more interesting by removing some of the walking shots.
Parallel First Draft
This is our first draft for our 'Parallel' opening sequence:
In our first draft we felt a lot of things went well, for example the cloning effect worked really well, some of the clips we filmed like the grass at the beginning and a few more looked really good. Although there were a lot of improvements we had to make:
- The sequence got quite boring in some places (like the walking section) due to the fact nothing was really going on. We thought it might be a good idea to add some music over the whole sequence where there isn't any speech and to add some titles in the walking section to make it more interesting. Also it might be a good idea to cut some of the clips out in the walking section because it did drag quite a bit.
- Some clips had some quite obvious wobbles that made our opening sequence look very amateur. We will edit it out these wobbles or even cut out some of the clips that are very wobbly altogether.
- There were some sound issues, for some reason the sound came out very quite when we transferred it onto YouTube, making it difficult to hear the dialogue and background noise that made the sequence more engaging. We will increase the audio gain on the noise to make it easier to hear.
- The titles needed major work as we hadn't included any movement with them yet. Also the names were completely made up and looked a bit silly. The font was also very ordinary and boring. We will change the font of the titles and give them some animations and movement to make them look more interesting. The names will be changed to people involved in the movie.
Storyboard of Parallel Opening
This is a video of Max explaining our storyboard of our film opening for 'Parallel'. We tried to mix up the shots as much as we could to create some interesting variation, making our film more engaging for the audience. It also shows how long each shot will take, so we have a vague idea of how long our film is going to be all together, and what we may need to cut or include to make our opening sequence a suitable length. It clearly shows all our titles and their movement, for example the title moving across the river at the beginning will be used in our sequence. Overall the storyboard makes our filming process much quicker as we already have a good idea of what we are going to do before we start.
BFI Trip
This is a picture of all of the media students on the BFI trip.
On the BFI trip we learnt the difference between independent movies and mainstream movies. We had a talk from a few representatives of some companies including Independent Cinema, BigTalk Productions/ Pictures and Film4. All of these being based around the independent film industry.
Mainstream film institutions would involve "The Big 6" which would be companies such as:
- 20th Century Fox
- Warner Bros
- Disney
- Universal
- Paramount
- MGM
Quentin Tarantino
This is an interview with Quentin Tarantino:
Quentin Tarantino is by far my favourite film director. His films, such as:
- Pulp Fiction
- Django Unchained
- Kill Bill
- Reservoir Dogs
- From Dawn Till Dusk
All of these films are very creative, different movies that in a way are all quite shocking, and you can see why when you see his crazy, original personality when explaining what's going on in his mind through making his movies.
Kill Bill is a very odd film as it has the main characters presented as comic book superheroes, with bright colours and crazy names. Django Unchained has got to go down as one of my favourite movies, its script and actors were terrific, and you could see the image that Tarantino was trying to create. Its a very shocking/violent movie, but that gives us an indication of what life was back in the African slaves era, They were forced to fight each other, whipped, murdered etc.
One of the best features of Quentin Tarantino's films for me is the music. The music is often very dramatic and odd which is portrayed especially in The Kill Bill films.
Quentin Tarantino is by far my favourite film director. His films, such as:
- Pulp Fiction
- Django Unchained
- Kill Bill
- Reservoir Dogs
- From Dawn Till Dusk
All of these films are very creative, different movies that in a way are all quite shocking, and you can see why when you see his crazy, original personality when explaining what's going on in his mind through making his movies.
Kill Bill is a very odd film as it has the main characters presented as comic book superheroes, with bright colours and crazy names. Django Unchained has got to go down as one of my favourite movies, its script and actors were terrific, and you could see the image that Tarantino was trying to create. Its a very shocking/violent movie, but that gives us an indication of what life was back in the African slaves era, They were forced to fight each other, whipped, murdered etc.
One of the best features of Quentin Tarantino's films for me is the music. The music is often very dramatic and odd which is portrayed especially in The Kill Bill films.
Previous Student Opening Sequence
I think this opening sequence is very different to most which makes it stand out. I like the idea of it going through all the data of this girls Facespace account. immediately I dislike her because she seems very up herself and posh which suggests that this girls acting ability is very good. When she started talking to this boy it was clear that this guy was trouble and gets the audience asking a lot of questions. The editing is very clever as it keeps flipping in and our of the website homepage and then back on the video.
Previous Student Opening Sequence
Out of all the opening sequences I've seen, this is my favourite. The titles in this sequence look very professional and the lighting in each shot is really nice. It leaves you asking a lot of questions as to why a couple of suited men are chasing this boy. The music gets the audiences adrenaline running which is key to making the chase scene effective. I could really see this being shown in a real film.
Previous Student Opening Sequence
The sound in this opening sequence is very fussy and clearly poor quality. I don't think there was any need for the gunshot at the beginning of the sequence. The title animations were very good, even though they were a bit random. I felt like there was way too much going on in the whole sequence all together, which made it seem more like a trailer then a movie opening.
Previous Student Opening Sequence
The titles were very clever as they were written down in funny places in a bedroom. I especially liked the stop motion drawing that occurred quite early on and the 20th Century Fox on the wall was a nice touch. Also the music went very well with the genre of the sequence.However the sequence was occurring in the bedroom for quite a long time so it felt like it was dragging for a bit, it would of been nice if they did all the titles walking around the house. And the but of her walking out the house at the end was unnecessary and shouldn't have been included.
The Box Trolls Title Sequence
0:05-0:08 Directed by Anthony Stacchi, Graham, Annable
0:08-0:12 Produced by David Bleiman Ichioka, Travis Knight
0:12-0:16 Screenplay by Isaac Hempstead Wright
0:22-0:26 Isaac Hemptstead Wright
0:30-0:34 Toni Collette
0:35-0:39 Simon Pegg
0:40-0:44 Director of Photography, John Ashlee Prat
0:45-0:49 Visual Effects Supervisors, Brian Van't Hul, Steve Emerson
0:50-0:54 Animation supervisor, Brad Schiff
0:55-1:00 Character designer and character sculptor, Mike Smith, Kent Melton
Fonts for Titles
The title fonts in our draft were quite ordinary as we only quickly put some together so people could get the gist of where they are going to be. We have been trying various fonts that may work in our title sequence and in the end we have chosen the font above. We don think our fonts should be over the top as the themes of our film wouldn't match that. We needed something more sophisticated yet effective to match our film.
Filming and Location
https://flickr.com/photos/129752749@N08/sets/72157649582959025
These are some pictures / videos we took during our filming at Admirals Park.
These are some pictures / videos we took during our filming at Admirals Park.
Conventions
These are some conventions that help make our film genre clearer:
Setting
The film opening will be set in Admirals Park, we believe this is a good location for our movie because at the time we plan to go there, it shouldnt be very busy so there is a lot of opportunity to get un inturrupted shots. Also the park is quite scenic which means we can get some nice/interesting shots. Although there are some parts of the park that is quite ordinary and boring like the bench we filmed on, to try and put across the dark side of our movie.
Themes
The themes to our movie are all quite dark because of the idea of a mental disease eating away at the main character. Dualty is a theme that is used in our film, shown by 2 of the same person that are complete opposites, giving an interesting contrast to the film. Sanity is a second theme for film which is shown by the fact Zac (the main character) has an imaginary version of himself, which suggests that he is going insane.
Icons
We have 2 main icons in the opening sequence, one is the medicine bottle filled with pills to treat schizophrenia. Our second main icon is the 2 coke cans, one diet and one original, showing the 2 different personalities of Zac and Zabel.
The narrative of our opening sequence consists of the reveal of Zacs imaginary version of himself (Zabel) and how their personalities contrast. The script is based around them 2 arguing on a bench because Zabel want to go home. In the script there are some subtle jokes that we have included in order to portray the comedy element to the film.
Characters
Max will play Zabel and Zac (schizophrenic character) and Liv will play the random woman that sits on the bench with him.
Textual Analysis
Setting
The film opening will be set in Admirals Park, we believe this is a good location for our movie because at the time we plan to go there, it shouldnt be very busy so there is a lot of opportunity to get un inturrupted shots. Also the park is quite scenic which means we can get some nice/interesting shots. Although there are some parts of the park that is quite ordinary and boring like the bench we filmed on, to try and put across the dark side of our movie.
Themes
The themes to our movie are all quite dark because of the idea of a mental disease eating away at the main character. Dualty is a theme that is used in our film, shown by 2 of the same person that are complete opposites, giving an interesting contrast to the film. Sanity is a second theme for film which is shown by the fact Zac (the main character) has an imaginary version of himself, which suggests that he is going insane.
Icons
We have 2 main icons in the opening sequence, one is the medicine bottle filled with pills to treat schizophrenia. Our second main icon is the 2 coke cans, one diet and one original, showing the 2 different personalities of Zac and Zabel.
Narrative
The narrative of our opening sequence consists of the reveal of Zacs imaginary version of himself (Zabel) and how their personalities contrast. The script is based around them 2 arguing on a bench because Zabel want to go home. In the script there are some subtle jokes that we have included in order to portray the comedy element to the film.
Characters
Max will play Zabel and Zac (schizophrenic character) and Liv will play the random woman that sits on the bench with him.
Textual Analysis
Blog Reflection
Blog Reflection
I have learned various programmes for showing off my work for example, I've made some presentations on Prezi, i have used Slideshare to upload my Powerpoint presentations onto the blog and i have used Premiere to edit my filming. I have tried various premiere effects for example, razor cutting, fading, sliding transitions, adding titles, adding music, slowing down the footage etc.out of 20, I reckon I've got about 12 marks. Its hard to determine how many marks I've got but i have a fair amount of blog posts and I think I've put a good amount of detail into my posts.
I should have done my research section of my blog much quicker then I did because when I started doing the work for my prelim and planning I kept having to go back to my research which cost me time and also muddled up the order of my blog.
I suppose it is quite interesting to look through, especially the the parts on premiere, its quite funny too look through clips you've made yourself and editing you've done of movie clips.
Yes the learning journey is evident. This is shown by the simple tasks at the beginning, for example the semiotics and the films genres to the planning task, making an opening film sequence.
Targets to improve:
1) Blog more efficiently - Try to get my blog posts out quickly and on time or they will all clog up and ill have a lot of work to do at once.
2) Make blog more organised - At some times ive blogged in a funny order due to the backlog of some bits of work that I took a while to complete
3) Make sure i update more posts - This means I can alter them and make them better.
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