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.

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.

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.

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

Filming and Location

In our location, Admirals Park, this tree stood out to use because it was the largest in the area where we started looking and it had the most leaves on it, making it look more effective as it was blown by a mild wind.





This is the children's playground in Admirals Park which we thought looked good from the bridge, for this reason we took a shout of it similar to where we have taken a picture of it. The river at the bottom of the image had a strong current to it which we took a low shot of as we thought it would be quite interesting to have a title following the current.





This is a shot of some trees without any leaves on it so you can see the sun beaming through them creating a nice camera effect. We also decided to take a still shot of this.




This is sort of an overflowing pond, which has started covering the grass which created a very nice effect in the sun making a mirror image of the surroundings. We took a worms eye shot of the pond, focusing on the grass, but being able to see the birds splashing about in the background.





This is a picture of me and Max trying to get a good shot of the camera panning along a spinning round about. This shot might be a bit random but it does add some nice imagery to the opening sequence.

Music Research

This is a selection of the types music choices from similar opening sequences that we can consider using in our opening:

Forest Gump:

Forest Gump uses quite slow, peaceful,composed piece of music which is similar to to a lullaby. I think that Forest Gump used this type of music because of the floating feather going throughout most of the scene, because the feather looks quite peaceful and it floats down very slowly. I think this kind of music could work in our opening sequence because the beginning of our sequence will be panning around a park which could suit the track in Forest Gump. Although the only problem I have with it is if we use this track, it will give the impression that our film is a twee, feel-good movie when its actually a dark comedy.

Shallow Grave: 

Shallow Grave uses very upbeat club music that is also composed by the film. I think Shallow Grave used this music because the camera work is very fast and hectic so they needed a track that would suit it, it would have looked weird if they used a slow track with fast filming. I'm not sure a track like this would work in our opening sequence as we haven't planned our filming to be very fast at all so it might not work with really upbeat music. Although if we do decide to use it with some fast images, it could excite the audience and get their adrenaline going which would be a success. 

 

The Double: 

The Double uses no music at all. I think this is quite effective because you can hear the train noise and other surrounding sound which makes the audience feel like they're in the atmosphere of the movie. This way they can connect to the film and get hooked into the scene even when nothing much is really happening. I think no music could work it our opening sequence because we can get the surround sound of the park which is mainly rustling tree's into the scene; also our opening sequence is very similar to The Double because the main character also starts sitting down. Although I think no music would only suit to a certain type of audience. Thrill seekers may find no track quite boring, although we weren't planning on thrill seekers being our target audience.

Shooting Schedule

This is our group shooting schedule. It may have to be extended due to weather problems and availability as it is going to be quite tough to get a day of school.

Risk Assessment

 This list contains all of the possible things that can go wrong during our shooting of Parallel. Although the possible threats are not too serious, it is important to take them down because of the possibility of any of these things happening.

 

Synopsis

What we will need:

• A bench in Admirals Park
• Bus stop. (Preferably not in use by other people) 
• Trees in the park
• Pavement beneath the bench
• Suit 
• Smart shoes and bag/briefcase
• Medicine bottle and new label 
• Tic Tacs  
• Coke and Diet Coke 

Characters:

Max will play both schizophrenic men on the bench as it will appear like 2 of the same person are talking to eachother. Olivia will play an unfortunate woman who happens to engage eye contact with Zabel/ Zac (Max) on the bench in Admirals Park.

Costume:

We decided to put Max into a suit because we want to make our main character look like an adult and not a teenage boy. We think this will add more humor to the opening sequence. We have already taken into consideration the 2 characters costumes. Zac will look quite smart with a clean suit, worn properly and nicely done hair. Zabels suit will be quite messy, along with his hair to try and make the costumes portray their personalities.

 

Location: 

The location of our opening sequence will be at Admirals Park. We will use the bus stop opposite the park on Rainsford Road, We will try and get as much filming done on one day because of the weather, but if there needs to be more time then we will have to do our best with what we have. 

Audience: 

Our audience is mainly people between the ages of 18 and 60 as our film is quite sophisticated. We thought that people younger than 18 years old may not get the gist of our film because it could be quite confusing. Although we don't think it is a good idea to label our film a 18 because that will restrict the number of sales we can make. For this reason or age rating for our film is a 15.

Mis en Scene Ideas

MISE EN SCENE:

- Settings, costume/props, hair and make-up
- Facial expressions and body language
- Colour and lighting
- Character positioning

Setting, costume/props, hair and make-up

Due to the fact our film is outdoors it makes finding a location much easier. We were thinking of many different parks because they are likely to have a bench which is what we were planning on doing part of our filming on. We settled on Admirals park because it is a very large and scenic area which is also quite near to a bus stop which makes it convenient for us to film because we need a bus stop in part of our filming.
Because we only have one character, we only need one costume which is quite simple to get. We decided that our main character (Zac) will be wearing a smart suit to try and make him look like an average working man and it says his personalty is to be quite ordinary. On the other hand, our second personality (Zabel) will be wearing the same suit but it will worn wrong and made to look very messy to show that his personality is quite odd.

 Facial expressions and body language

Facial expressions and body language will be key to getting the personality of our characters across to the audience. Zac (our main character is supposed to come across as frustrated and embarrassed through our opening sequence, so the kind of expressions we wil use will be quite angry, whilst showing that Zac has low self esteem. Also Zacs body language will be quite muted, with not much movement, making it seem like he's not able to open himself up. Zabel (Zacs second personality) is supposed to come across as the complete opposite of Zac, so this means he will be much more confident, much more explosive and a bit crazy. To make this happen, we will try and make Zabels facial expressions appear like he is quite crazy and odd. Zabels body language will be more expressionate and out-going because it makes Zabel seem more confident in himself.

 Colour and lighting

Lighting is not easy because it all depends on the weather we have on the day of filming which obviously will change from one day to the next which means it is key to do as much filming as possible on one day, so the lighting stays the same. This also helps the lighting look more realistic because one day could be really damp and the next could be bright sunlight.

Character Positioning

Zac is the main charcater of the sequence so he will more often the not be the centre of the screen with Zabel and any other extras based around him. This is to make sure Zac is the centre of attention and draws the audience into his character.

Script

This is our script for our opening sequence. With our script we looked at how other scripts were layed out and presented and tried to emulate it as closely as possible. When we start filming we are more then likely to adjust the script because we will be working out what looks/sounds good throughout our filming.  

Audience Research

This slideshow explains the audience that we are aiming to advertise our film to.

 

Shot List

In our opening film sequence we think it is important to use a lot of interesting camera shot to make our film more interesting for the audience and technically, make it a better piece of filming to get our opening sequence more marks. These are some of the shot that we are thinking of including in our opening sequence.

1. High panning shot of tree's in Admirals Park 
2. Wormseye shot of river 
3. Extreme long shot of the park 
4. Close up of a roundabout spinning on its own
5. Close up, wormseye shot of the man's leg
6. Pan upwards to reveal the man sitting on the bench 
7. Mid-shot that tilts upwards to reveal both personalities sitting on the bench 
8. Close up of mans mouth 
9. Long-shot of both men sitting on the bench 
10. 180 degree shot during conversation 
11. A variety of tracking shots including close ups and long shots whilst the man is walking to the bus stop. 
12. Long shot from across the street.
 These pictures show our group thinking of ideas that can go into our shot list.
 

Moodboard of Similar Films

This mood board helped our group alter the themes and genre of our film which I think is vital in order to make our opening sequence as good as possible.